The William Blake Cycle: Unseen, Unbodièd, Unknown
a multimedia saxophone opera for 5 saxophones (one player) with chamber ensemble, 128-channel spatial audio, 360-degree video, and theatrical direction
Duration: 70 minutes
premiered in The Cube
Moss Arts Center
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
December 5, 2022
Soloist Kyle Hutchins, saxophones
with
Dalia Chin, flutes
Rebeccah Parker Downs, cello
Sheldon Johnson, saxophone
Katherine Kennedy, soprano
Jeffrey Siegfried, saxophone
Derek Shapiro, conductor
Justin Anthony Spenner, baritone
Annie Stevens, percussion
Shannon Wettstein, piano
Tiffany M. Skidmore, video and electronics
Ted Moore, Technical Director
Amanda Nelson, Theatrical Director
Text and Images by William Blake
Adaptation by Tiffany M. Skidmore
PHYSICAL SCORE PURCHASE
PDF SCORE PURCHASE
Since 2015, composer Tiffany M. Skidmore and saxophonist Kyle Hutchins have been collaborating on a cycle of electroacoustic instrumental chamber pieces centered around the saxophone that considers text and characters created by William Blake. Each movement explores relationships between mythological characters in the Blake universe, nonbinary gender identity, sexual politics, and gender stereotypes.
The Book of Ahania for baritone saxophone and bass flute (2022)
4:00
Premiered by Kyle Hutchins, baritone saxophone and Dalia Chin, bass flute at the Eighth Blackbird Studio in Chicago, IL (09/22)
The Book of Ahania acts as a refrain throughout the cycle. Ahania, the female emanation of Urizen, is his soul. Urizen becomes jealous and ashamed of his own feminine emanation–he sees her as “sinful” and hides her away until she becomes an unembodied shadow that wanders the earth, becoming “the mother of Pestilence.”
The Night of Enitharmon's Joy for flute, tenor saxophone, and electronics (2016)
8:00
text from William Blake’s Europe: A Prophecy
Katherine Kennedy Balfour, Soprano
Version I: for flute with bass clarinet and electronics
premiered by Without Fear of Wind or Vertigo
Version II: for flute with tenor saxophone and electronics (2017)
premiered by the Strains New Music Ensemble
Version III: for flute with bassoon and Electronics (2018)
2018 UnTwelve Call for Works Selection
The focus of Blake’s characterization of the first female, Enitharmon, represents “female domination and sexual restraints that limit the artistic imagination.” The Night of Enitharmon’s Joy reinterprets Blake’s poem, conceiving of it as a commentary on sexual oppression/suppression using restrictive pitch/rhythmic materials. Musically, the foundational vocal melody can never develop. Live instrumental lines begin to sprout from above and below the foundation, always forced to loop back due to musical constraints. Electronic snippets of a romantic underlying melody and poetic text emerge periodically from the textures, while a prolonged electronic whisper eventually envelops all other musical elements.
Vala/Luvah for saxophone trio (Alto, Alto, Tenor) and electronics (2019)
Text from William Blake’s Vala, or the Four Zoas
Katherine Kennedy Balfour, Soprano
Justin Anthony Spenner, Baritone
10:00
premiered by Acute Trio at Gamut Gallery
Jeffery Kyle Hutchins, Bera Romairone, and Sara Zazo Romero
In Vala/Luvah, Vala and Luvah are feminine and masculine emanations of a single entity. Vala/Luvah loves and hates him/her/themself with a fiery, apocalyptic intensity.
Tharmas the father/Enion the mother for solo sopranino saxophone (2020)
text from William Blake’s Vala, or the Four Zoas
12:00
Cancelled premiere by Alexander Richards
at the 2020 North American Saxophone Alliance Biennial Conference
premiered by Kyle Hutchins at the Twin Cities New Music Festival in the Park Square Theatre in St. Paul (07/2021)
Tharmas the father/Enion the mother explores Tharmas’s masculine persona at multiple simultaneous “ages” — he is both a bearded old man and a young man with wings. At the same time, the ecstatic, wailing music of Enion, this being’s feminine persona, gradually fades away, disappearing over the course of the piece.
The Spectre of Urthona for two soprano saxophones, cello, piano, percussion, and electronics
text from William Blake’s Vala, or the Four Zoas
10:00
The Spectre of Urthona depicts the erotic encounter that gives birth to a world full of lush flowers and poisonous fruit.
The Book of Ahania for bass flute and baritone saxophone (REPRISE)
4:00
The Book of Urizen for alto saxophone and piano (2015)
10:00, premiered by the Hutchins/Qiang Duo at Lloyd Ultan Hall (11/2015)
The Book of Urizen is focused on the character Urizen, who features prominently in Blake’s Europe: A Prophecy. In Blake’s universe, Urizen represents the first living entity. He is intensely destructive, yet simultaneously “the embodiment of conventional reason and law." This piece explores Urizen’s multifaceted character and story through a complex, wordless setting of passages from Blake’s poem.