You Could Move from Pillars Opus (2011)

Fixed Media

Duration 4'41

Premiered at the Merrill Ellis Intermedia Theater on December 12, 2011 in Denton, TX.

Program Notes

“You could move. –Abigail Van Buren, “Dear Abby,” in response to a reader who complained that a gay couple was moving in across the street and wanted to know what he could do to improve the quality of the neighborhood.”

You Could Move was written as a response to the above quote.  However despite just musically representing the printed heroism of Dear Abby, the work sets out to implore the listener to do something.  One of the news broadcasts used depicts a young high school who was bullied and beaten in the middle of a crowded cafeteria with the broadcaster stating “nobody did anything.”  This cannot happen.  People cannot stand idly by and watch hatred and violence dominate and terrorize young boys and girls no matter what their race, creed, or sexual orientation.

The work uses sound bites from news broadcasts, synthesized sounds, as well as verbalized quotations of Van Buren’s comment by Elyse Kahler.

You Could Move  is the first work in the Pillars Opus , a collection of electronic works that utilize the spoken word as methods of making a statement about homosexuality and love.

- Chris Lamb, November 2011