The William Blake Cycle: Unseen, Unbodièd, Unknown
(World Premiere)
by Tiffany M. Skidmore
Fully-staged 60-minute saxophone opera
with 128-channel spacial audio and 365º video projected onto the Cyclorama
The Cube
Virginia Tech
TICKETS
The Book of Ahania for bass flute and baritone saxophone
The Night of Enitharmon’s Joy for tenor saxophone, flute, and electronics
Vala/Luvah for saxophone trio and electronics
Tharmas the Father/Enion the Mother for solo sopranino saxophone
The Spectre of Urthona for two soprano saxophones, cello, piano, percussion, and electronics
The Book of Ahania for bass flute and baritone saxophone
The Book of Urizen for alto saxophone and piano
Soloist Kyle Hutchins, saxophone
with
Dalia Chin, flutes
Rebeccah Parker Downs, cello
Sheldon Johnston, saxophone
Derek Shapiro, conductor
Jeffrey Siegfried, saxophone
Annie Stevens, percussion
Shannon Wettstein, piano
Ted Moore, technical director
Amanda Nelson, director
About The William Blake Cycle:
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 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 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.
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 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 depicts the erotic encounter that gives birth to a world full of lush flowers and poisonous fruit.
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.
About Kyle Hutchins:
Hailed as “epic” (Jazz Times), "formidable" (The Saxophone Symposium), and "gripping" (Star Tribune), Kyle Hutchins is an internationally acclaimed saxophonist, improviser, and educator. He has appeared across five continents at major festival and venues in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, China, Croatia, the Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, Scotland, South Korea, and across the United States including Carnegie Hall, National Sawdust, The Walker Art Center, World Saxophone Congress, Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt, International Computer Music Conference, among many others. He has recorded over two dozen albums on labels Carrier, Noise Pelican, Klavier, GIA, farpoint, Avid Sound, and Emeritus, and his work has been recognized by awards and grants from DOWNBEAT, New Music USA, American Protégé International Competition, Music Teachers National Association, Mu Phi Epsilon Foundation, and others.
Kyle has presented over 200 premiere performances of new works by emerging and established composers and sound artists. He is a founding member of 113 (One Thirteen), a collective of composers and performers of experimental new music who curate concerts, educational programs, festivals, seminars, and masterclasses around the world. He is one half of Binary Canary, a woodwind-laptop improvisation duo alongside electronicist Ted Moore.
Kyle has served as Artist/Teacher of Saxophone at Virginia Tech since 2016 where he teaches classical and jazz saxophone, directs the Jazz Lab Band and New Music Ensemble, and is the Artistic Director of the Spatial Music Workshop and New Music + Technology Festival at the Institute of Creativity, Arts, and Technology.
Kyle has a Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music degree from the University of Minnesota, and Bachelors of Music in performance and Bachelors of Music Education degrees from the University of North Texas. His teachers include Eugene Rousseau, Eric Nestler, Marcus Weiss, and James Dillon.
Kyle is a Yamaha, Légère, and E. Rousseau Mouthpiece Performing Artist.