PROGRAM NOTE:
I typically write music with fairly involved programmatic intentions along with forms that echo or amplify
them. However, I also enjoy music that simply unfolds a process or a ‘conceit’. Fabrication 13: Monster is a component part of a larger 32-movement cycle for various ensembles ranging from solos and duos to works for orchestra. These Fabrications explore more mechanical approaches to generating music. Each has a subtitle; a synonym of ‘fabrication’ which says something about the piece itself.

In Caryl Churchill's disturbing play, Blue Kettle, a man seems to be playing a con trick on a elderly woman, pretending to be her long-lost son. As the play continues the word ‘blue’ and then the word ‘kettle’ are dropped into the dialogue as if they belonged there. These words arrive more frequently and jostle out any clear meaning. Increasingly, too, the words are cut into little pieces. The final pages include lines such as ”How bl bl bl this was bl son?” “Because I ket ket documents, his passport bl stuff, bl ket for a laugh” “ Ket b tle die of?” all spoken as if nothing strange is happening. Fabrication 13: Monster consists of a whirling single line interrupted by two parallel chains of pitches which gradually, as in the play, force out the “narrative” creating a ‘monster’

see also Fabrications