Baldwin / Now (2016)

    This work was staged by Ping Chong in January of 2016.

     This is a composition I did in support of a theatre/dance work conceived by Ping Chong. While every account of racially motivated violence in itself represents a tragedy, it is quite disheartening to mentally grapple with the seemingly endless reports of these disgraceful events. For me, this work was only possible because it was undertaken by a group of artists all struggling to make sense of the topic collaboratively. I would have failed terribly had I tackled this alone. So, this is my modest contribution, which owes all to Ping's direction. My hope would be to not only honor the individual tragedies suffered by so many. But as the violence continues seemingly unabated, I also hope this work illuminates the crisis we are facing in this country. Allowing the work with Ping Chong to serve as an example, it is obvious to me that this is not a problem that will be fixed by an individual, or legislators, or a demographic segment of the population. I feel this is something that we must all struggle against as a society and culture as a whole.

Listen to an mp3 of a concert version of this work

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