programme note

a hollow heart’s temptation (2022) is a contemplative portrait of rejection, both from the recipient and giver’s perspective. While the music is not innately programmatic, an image that came to mind during the process of writing was that of a fire pit; scattered with ash and embers tickling the eyes and the back of the throat. As I was writing the work the music of Björk was on loop almost 24/7, especially the early album Post. This verse from the song ‘Isobel’ struck a particularly relevant chord:

in a heart full of dust
lives a creature called lust
it surprises and scares
like me, like me
(excerpt from Isobel)

The presence of memories in the form of dust and decay are interlaced throughout the materials played by the ensemble. The entwining of instrumental voices and textures into one another are deployed in a strange web of activities, activating the resonances – a smoldering pit of the world’s ashiest fruit, no longer ripe, now frayed and defeated – and responding to one another. a hollow heart’s temptation (2022) is a work born from a period of punitive reflection on one’s inability to control the unbridled love and passion, and the resignation that can follow.