forgetting (2021)

vocal sextet and toy noise makers
Duration: 6’45

Written for Ekmeles as part of the Columbia Composer’s Series
Video collaboration with Ted Moore

Premiered online May, 2021
6-speaker installation version premiered May 20, 2021 in the Villa Aurelia at the American Academy in Rome

Only the song took formidable work to forget.
. . .
And so it was now hers, the labor of forgetting—.
Forgetting doesn’t just happen,
it takes practice. And, like any other practice,
it begins in loathing.

She began to read novels again, which was difficult—
attending to a story, if it faltered,
was an impossible practice.

— excerpt from Katie Ford's Estrangement (2020)