flute & oboe (or flute & soprano saxophone)
Duration: 5 min
Program Note:
Marble & Blood was composed for a recital focusing on community engagement with the University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum’s Exhibition, “Native America: In Translation.” The piece is a response to Alan Michelson’s Hanödaga:yas (Town Destroyer), which projects images related to the 1779 Sullivan-Clinton Scorched Earth Campaign onto a bust of George Washington. The campaign, ordered by then-General Washington, destroyed the villages and food supplies of the Haudenosaunee (The Six Nations) in Pennsylvania and New York; the people were forced to flee to Niagara, where many died in the harsh winter. The title of Michelson’s piece references the name given to George Washington and used to mean “the President of the United States” in the Seneca language, along with its English translation.
This piece makes extensive use of speech rhythms derived from the phrases “Town Destroyer” and “Hanödaga:yas” in its primary melodic material. The two middle sections reference the minuet, a dance favored by George Washington. The contrast in Marble & Blood between the frivolity of courtly dancing and the horror of Washington’s efforts to eradicate the Indigenous Peoples of North America serves to challenge the mythologized version of Washington taught in primary school. Only by acknowledging the unvarnished reality of our history can we prevent its repetition and begin any meaningful process of rectification.