i carry your heart - Ben Nobuto (2022)
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i carry your heart (2022) is a piece for flute, yangqin and visuals composed by Ben Nobuto and premiered by Daniel Shao and Mantawoman. The piece was commissioned for Daniel Shao's Tangram Voices | LAOGANMAN concerts on 26/27 May 2022 at San Mei Gallery. |
Based on a single line of text from e e cummings’ poem, i carry your heart alternates between moments of kitschy maximalism and sentimental folksong. The text appears in fragment several times, each time slightly extended before finally revealing itself in full.
Something I find really touching about cummings’ poem is the way it combines formal experimentation with an earnest, first-person voice - i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart) - this jarring mix of avant-gardism with emotional sincerity, expression that refuses to hide behind irony or ‘meta’ humour. While writing this piece I imagined a process of something cold and machine-like gradually giving way to warmth and tenderness, older forms of masculinity remoulding into new ones.
Notes by Ben Nobuto
https://bennobuto.com/
Something I find really touching about cummings’ poem is the way it combines formal experimentation with an earnest, first-person voice - i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart) - this jarring mix of avant-gardism with emotional sincerity, expression that refuses to hide behind irony or ‘meta’ humour. While writing this piece I imagined a process of something cold and machine-like gradually giving way to warmth and tenderness, older forms of masculinity remoulding into new ones.
Notes by Ben Nobuto
https://bennobuto.com/