In Violet
for Bb Saxophone, Tape, and Video Projection, 2020 - 8’
commissioned by Curtis Allen Gay
This piece started as an attempt to reflect at the close of a decade, 2020. If I could choose, what moment would I want humanity to learn from going forward? The Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, 2015. A white supremacist entered the church and began shooting. The country was horrified; and the perpetual threat of gun violence has not since been solved. As part of the services for Rev. Clementa Pinckney, President Barack Obama came to the service and delivered a eulogy. He spoke, as he always did, with the most complete sense of understanding. But more importantly, he spoke truthfully, and with no intent to hide his pain. President Obama said in his eulogy, about the Emmanuel AME Church, “that’s what the black church means — our beating heart, the place where our dignity as a people in inviolate.” Inviolate; it’s an adjective meaning to be “free or safe from injury or violation.” That to me is what this piece is about. We will never be able to truly understand the pain that anyone else is going through, but this is an attempt to create 8 minutes where the audience, the performer, and those who want to, can be awash in violet, free and safe from the troubles of their moment.