A Lost Question

This is a composition by Cat Hope for two percussionists at the vibraphone. INSTRUMENTATION: Vibraphone, selected bowed percussion, a.m. radios, sand and whispering voice. \ For Palestine The score is proportional in terms of pitch when applied to pitched instruments. Each performer has a colour – red and green. Each single bowed gesture on is signalled by the vertical line (thick on top, start from the heel - thin, start from the tip). The horizontal lines indicate continuous bowing as continuously as possible. Take care not to make make regular bow changes. Round shapes are flesh of the fingertips on the instrument, as little attack as possible. Crosses are nails, When these are combined with round shapes in a ‘cloud’ – scratch across the vibraphone. Jaggered line, spiral line - symbols – swirling and linear are tracing in sand. dotted line - a.m. radio on, push to make it swing. wavy lines - running hands around the resonators under the vibraphone. For matieral inside the wihite brackets, chose other instruments than the vibraphone to bow, and hand them from a rack overhead. The voice part (in your colour) should be whispered at all times. When a horizontal opaque shape appears, use your breath to breathe out and to breathe in audibly. Do this gently, and close to the vibraphone, as if you are whispering to it, breathing on it. Other instructions are written in the score in grey. The score should be read in the Decibel ScorePlayer application . Thank you Louise Devenish for your advice around the creation of this peice. PROGRAM NOTE This piece is for displaced people. We all deserve a home, a place where we can be safe with our families. Most recently, since October 2023, the people of Palestine have been under attack in Gaza and the West Bank, and this is my elegy but also my hope for a future home where they can be safe. This piece is set to a translation by Michael R. Burch of the opening to a poem by Palestinian poet Fadwa Tuqan (1917-2003), ‘Existence’. In solitary life, I was a lost question; In the ...