"The Hermeneutics of Suspicion in the Time-Traveling Cowboy's Adventures" For Cello

In my new composition commissioned by Softbank, "The Hermeneutics of Suspicion in the Time-Traveling Cowboy's Adventures" for Cello delivers a complex notational vocabulary incorporating extreme extended techniques in which the cellist encounters rhythmic indentations and protrusions; a delicate topography of peaks and valleys in the score.

The composition is focused on the concept of a new space… on the grounds that it was too closely bound up with subjective gesture, but much more flexible about the notational intervals at which they appeared of which arranged diagonal vectors form corridors of open space which alternately narrow and widen across the score.

In a way, the composition attacks the supports and surfaces, the very structure of what this score is, and in that way we feel these sounds as if were feeling these textures in our own body.’ The cellists' compositional expression and the idea of how to frame that expression become inseparable; or, to borrow an idea from the theater, the proscenium is designed together with the action onstage. This work represents a very physical form of creative destruction: to go through it and transform it.

One of the themes I explored in this work focused on my interest in the ways in which power operates in society. I envision the cellist arguing that power is not just something that is possessed by individuals or groups, but is rather something that is diffuse and pervasive, operating through a complex web of social relations. The intricacies of the tablature express my belief that knowledge is always produced within a specific historical and cultural context, and that it is therefore always contingent and subject to change.

I am also interested in the ways in which this notation functions as a system of signs that produces meaning. This notation is not just a stylistic choice, but is rather a way of engaging with their ideas about power and knowledge. It is a composition that embodies the radical potential of creative destruction. It is a work that attacks the very foundations of traditional musical notation and reconfigures them into a new kind of space that is both unsettling and exhilarating.

It is a work that demands not just technical virtuosity of the performer, but also a willingness to engage with the political and philosophical implications of its form and the idea of the "destructive character" - a figure who seeks to go beyond the limitations of existing forms and create something new. The use of the cello as the solo instrument creates a sense of intimacy and immediacy that is difficult to reproduce; it creates a sense of disorientation and uncertainty which embodies a sense of skepticism and distrust of established power structures.