Spooky Action at a Distance

Program Notes: 

"(Spooky) action at a distance, or quantum entanglement- meaning the ability of a subatomic particle to influence and change the properties and physical behavior of another particle without touching or being in the same proximity as it- was dismissed by Einstein and his colleagues but today has been proven and quantifiably observed at greater and greater distances (including between Earth and a satellite in space).

Given the entirely virtual nature of the lives of a new underclass of lower-class students and workers deemed non-essential enough to be locked away in the physically safe but spiritually disemboweling Zoom void during the online year, a new meaning entirely is construed from the concept of the instantaneous impact of events across thousands of miles.

With this piece, I wanted to juxtapose seemingly unrelated events as if they were directly correlative, as well as tear apart apparently causative events and disclose the potential truth of their hollowness.

With the introduction of the quotes from Bach's five chorales entitled "Oh sacred heart now wounded", I made reference to the organ's longstanding and potentially problematic ensconcement in religious, and particularly Christian, music (I chose the "O haupt" series because the timbre of the organ has always attuned me to a throbbing sensation, like the pulsating of blood through the heart chamber, or its rushing to a trauma). I thought of the Catholic/mystic tradition of the holy relic, an object described as a remnant of the sacred events of the New Testament (such as, a body part apparently belonging to Christ, a sliver of the cross, etc.). I wondered if someone like Bach had become somewhat of a holy relic within the institution of concert music (read Western European classical music): a venerated, idealized past that might come back to bless us or to bite us. The question then is, when is Judgement Day, and

why are we obsessed with preparing for it?

-Maya Miro Johnson

April 12, 2021"