Eleven Fragments for the Book of Dreams

"The Book of Dreams" by Sonja Krefting

Eleven Fragments for the Book of Dreams was originally composed for baritone/digital media artist David Adam Moore as part of Book of Dreams: Chapter Sand, an experimental collaboration with GLMMR, a New York City-based multimedia art collective founded by Moore and stage/film designer, Vita Tzykun. In that context, Moore composed electronic accompaniments to my fragments that were precisely engineered to allow sounds from loudspeakers to blend at high volume levels with his unamplified operatic voice. The fragments were also designed to stand on their own, however, as a set of solo vocal studies. The text by poet Sonja Krefting depicts a strange world of sand, mirrors, and scorpions; a dream labyrinth that foretells, and perhaps forges a connection with the afterlife. The music itself reflects this strange world: dynamics bob and weave and scansion is sometimes askew; fragments blow by quickly, or become the subject of obsession. Lasting approximately 10 minutes, Eleven Fragments for the Book of Dreams was commissioned by Sparks & Wiry Cries for David Adam Moore and premiered at National Sawdust in Brooklyn on December 17, 2017 in a production supported by The Casement Fund.