Wet Psalm is a setting of a poem by Linda Norton, which is based on a page from a rain-soaked bible she found in the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, Louisiana in April 2008. The page has parts of Psalms 70 and 71, which become the text for the piece, inflected by Linda’s alterations.
The pre-recorded electronics are created from a recording Eleonor Sandresky made of me improvising on a broken Vietnamese dan tranh, an instrument given to me in 1997 by the performer Nguyen Thu Thuy.
Wet Psalm was originally written for spoken word, violin, and trombone quartet, but the violin part can alternatively be played by clarinet, soprano sax, and other instruments.
The piece was commissioned by The ASCAP Foundation Charles Kingsford Fund. The world premiere by BRIM and the Guidonian Hand was on 1 June 2012 on the Tribeca New Music Festival at Roulette.
Wet Psalm is part of my ongoing project A Book of Days. You can watch Matt Petty’s video made for our recording by visiting 11 November.
For a performing materials, please click the buy button below. The suggested price is $20, but you can choose your own price based on your situation, with my thanks for supporting this low-key way of publishing:
DETAILS
- Instrumentation: clarinet saxophone trombone voice (speaker) violin
- Ensemble Size: 2-6
- Duration: 5-12 minutes
- Electronics: Fixed Audio
- Video: Yes
- Project(s): A Book of Days BRIM: The River Project
- Year: 2012