Works
About
Contact
Home






Cap Malheureux (2012)

for Soprano and Instrumental Ensemble

Flute / Piccolo, Clarinet, Trumpet, Trombone, Percussion, 2 Violin, Viola, 'Cello, Contrabass

Duration: 10 minutes

Program Note
At the northernmost tip of the island of Mauritius lies Cap Malheureux. Situated there is a graveyard and at the point where the cliffs drop off to the sea, a tree. An anonymous grave, draped in green cloth and surrounded by a small enclosure, is beneath it. On Friday nights townspeople visit the tomb bearing incense and candles. They call the body buried there simply Baba – father. Prior to the twentieth century, Mauritius was a stopping over point on the spice trade and a popular migration point for the South Asian diaspora.

My work Cap Malheureux uses the natural sounds of this spot as the basis for its musical materials. Recordings of the wind have been filtered to yield their most prominent frequencies and these harmonies create the tonality of the piece. The text is a sentence borrowed from a children's short story, interrupted by cries and shouts.

Cap Malheureux is a part of 'Appeal for Identification,' a large-scale music-theater work-in-progress that gives voice to Delhi's nameless dead through translating the ambient sounds of the locations where their bodies were found.

Premiere:
ALEA III
Rebekah Alexander, soprano
Theodore Antoniou, conductor

7 October 2012
Tsai Performance Center
Boston, Massachusetts


Listen

Performance by Talea Ensemble; Charlotte Dobbs, soprano, James Baker, conductor

Watch



Performance by ALEA III; Rebekah Alexander, soprano, Theodore Antoniou, conductor





Score

Score Sample
Purchase Score at Black Tea Music



Home
Works
About
Contact