Courage Barda
BM Composition Recital
Program Notes
Give orange me
Neam “Nim” Chimpsky was the chimpanzee subject of an animal language acquisition study at Columbia University in the 1970s. Nim learned to mimic American Sign Language and is remembered for having signed the longest recorded sentence by a non-human animal. The sentence is as follows: Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you. Scientists have debated the legitimacy of Nim’s ability to understand and use human language. I, however, find it awesome even if he didn’t understand what he was signing. A documentary and internet meme culture, and now my composition, have worked to preserve and honor Nim’s legacy. “Give orange me” won The Capital Hearings’ 2024 Young Composers Competition.
QUICK CHXNGE
Michel Foucault is perhaps best remembered for his work concerning power, which he argues is diffuse, socialized, and embodied, shaping behavior even in the absence of overt coercion. A prime example of this power, which I articulate in “QUICK CHXNGE,” is the power which governs what people wear. In an attempt to understand and consequently violate the rules which determine how the character is to express himself, he paints his face and wears a variety of costumes. As he tries different costumes, his appearance and state become degraded. Is the power which Foucault describes something that can be resisted, and at what cost?
The piece is an experiment in intermedia counterpoint, testing how video, live sound, and pre-recorded sound can interact with one another.
Burying the Mountain
I was commissioned by the International Brazilian Opera Company to compose a song cycle for tenor Yunxuan Zhu using poetry written by Shangyang Fang’s book Burying the Mountain. I chose three poems from the book in which grief becomes its own character. The poetry is enchanting and intimate. Who do you turn to when you lose someone close to you? How will you remember them?
I. Easier to Lift a Stone Than to Say Your Name
What will you do
when you see
a woman's palms
forming
a cemetery
carrying a canary
Will you weep
Will you sweep
the rain-slain
peach blossoms
back to the root
of their tree
II. Celadon
Watermarked like little maps, hands arrive
with lamps. Wrists churn the river, erase
a mountain from the water's scarred surface.
Only a boy's hand could perceive
such precision of tenderness. In his mind,
the boy sculpts a dream being:
another boy, too beautiful, not like a boy at all.
What is it like: a boy dreaming
of another boy's body? Must it be deadly?
The evening is falling; the rain
grazes the horses' chestnut skin as they turn
aimlessly among the birches,
their tense bodies lashed to the deep
disappearance. And the magpies
kept awake by the stars. All night, their eyes
brighten with indifference.
The boy walks among them, beside
the quiet river, into the blue columns
of moon. The river flows cold and fixed.
Suddenly, I rely on nothing to live.
III. Through the Darkness
of night find me through the darkness
I am here I promise
find me through the night I am here
I promise the same
darkness the stark attendance of stars
above the water I am
here in the darkness find me I promise
FOXFIRE
There was a period in my life where I was set on pursuing a career that included both music and mycology. I became a member of the Hoosier Mushroom Society and absorbed as much mycological information as I could. Mycology became more of a fascination than a career. I composed “FOXFIRE” after this fascination, composing text and music that invites listeners to a forest whose ground is covered with glow-in-the-dark mushrooms. Over two-thousand years ago, Aristotle wrote about bioluminescent mushrooms and called them “foxfire,” fire that is cold to the touch.
in darkness, in quiet:
pacific fires erupt
from the caps of
mushrooms.
blue-green lanterns
whisper secrets
to moths and beetles
from under their skirts.
the earth is a melon,
brimming with juice.
the night is still.
its tiny sponge ghosts
hum lullabies
while we sleep.
in darkness, in quiet:
foxfire glow.
(I)dentity
At the beginning of my freshman year, I responded to a flyer looking for an improvising musician for a dance project. The director of this project was IU Contemporary Dance senior Frances Rose Koper. Her project, for which I played accordion, was the start of a college career defined by interdisciplinary collaboration. Her imagination and technical skill inspire me still. At the end of my first semester, I asked Frances to dance with me on a piece I would compose and stage.
I composed “(I)dentity” to record my relationship with my disability at that time. It had been two years since my hospitalization, and while I had been improving, I had begun noticing a starker shift in facility. I needed to compose a piece I could perform again and again, remembering with each time how I feel performing in it. When I performed “(I)dentity” in 2023, I was just then accepting my disability as part of my identity, not as something that had been attached to me, but as something that had been absorbed by my being. I had never danced in my own work until then.
Now, I perform this piece as someone who calls himself a dancer. I understand, largely because of Frances’ encouragement, that I don’t need to have a “dancer’s body” to be a dancer. My physical disability is a part of my dance vocabulary. It is not an obstacle to my dance.
The narrative is intentionally abstract, so that when I perform it again, I will be able to do so with an open and honest mind.
Nuptia Insecta Shotgunica
Central to my artistic practice are two seemingly opposing forces: playfulness and critical theory. After coming across the work of scientist and artist Maria Sibylla Merian, the woman who is credited with the discovery of metamorphosis, I felt strongly compelled to create a piece in which I dance as a caterpillar. // At the same time, I was listening to the song “Loser” by Beck almost every day. The song’s lyrics are clever, nonsensical and highly-concentrated with cultural references, including shotgun weddings, weddings which are hastily put together and usually due to an unplanned pregnancy. // With both caterpillars and shotgun weddings on my mind, I began to wonder how the personification of an insect being forced into marriage might alter the ways in which people think about choice as it relates to culture and community. This insect is entirely torn between doing what she thinks is best for her and what her father and her community think is best for her.
If I leave him: / Dad would surely kill him. / Dad would surely kill me.
I have his baby. / I carry it with me. / It is my baby, too. / Not my parents’ baby. / It’s mine!
My body is too fragile. / I want to be a lawyer. / I’m still only a larva. / Can I wait til I am older?
He waited til I was alone. / He waited til Dad was asleep. / He told me he loved me and so / that’s what I chose to believe. / He made me unsafe in my home. / I remember the faces he made / when he was on top of me.
It could be you. It could be you. It could be you. It could be…