Exulansis (2018)
A duo for prepared piano and percussion, commissioned and premiered by Back Pocket Duo.
When Annie and Colin offered me the opportunity participate in the Back Pocket Duo’s “Empathy Project”, they asked if I were interested in writing a piece that explored the darker sides of empathy—when a person’s empathy is misplaced, causes more harm than good, or is simply insufficient to comprehend another’s experience. In particular, Annie introduced me to John Koenig’s Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, which features the following entry for the neologism “exulansis”:
exulansis
n. the tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it—whether through envy or pity or simple foreignness—which allows it to drift away from the rest of your life story, until the memory itself feels out of place, almost mythical, wandering restlessly in the fog, no longer even looking for a place to land.
(http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/96261999250/exulansis)
In my own take on “exulansis”, the pianist’s motivic material is subjected to the percussionist’s so-called empathy; I hope to convey both the pain and despair that arise from having another’s influence permanently alter and distort one’s own memory.