by composer
fl(=magnets.sheet metal.tam-t).cl(=bcl)-vln(prepared with aluminum foil).vlc(prepared with aluminum foil)-pft-perc(vib.BD.crot.gongs.cyms.playback device)
requires theatrical ghostlight (aka equity lamp), lighting design preferred as indicated in score
Abbreviations (PDF)
Boosey & Hawkes (Hendon Music)
A ghost light shining in a darkened theater has always struck me as a symbol of both the mysteries of the unknown and the possibility of the sacred. The ghost light itself is of course connected with a sense of the supernatural through the superstitions of the theater. For example, one thought regarding its origin is that, since every theater has its own ghost, the light was placed on stage as a kind of offering, allowing the ghost(s) a chance to play upon the stage, in exchange for the safety of the theater and its actors. Yet to me the ghost light has always felt more sacred than spooky. Like the setting for a ritual, or a kind of shrine where an eternal flame burns, honoring the age and sanctity of the Theater, with its direct lines back to the Greeks, gods, ritual, and magic. Ghostlight was inspired by this sense of ancient ritual, and the mysteries that lie within it.
Like many works by the artists to whom each movement is dedicated—Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, Anne Waldman and Lou Harrison—Ghostlight is a self-contained journey, first inward, then out. It begins with the calm of a summer dusk, then gradually grows darker, as it travels into murkier and stranger territory—the kind of psychic space where one might begin to hear voices—before emerging again into to the sunshine of a new day. It is a journey into the Enchanted Forest of fairy tales, where, as J.C. Cooper notes, the soul enters the "perils of the unknown; the realm of death; the secrets of nature, or the spiritual world which (one) must penetrate to find the meaning." Like the ghost light itself, the work endeavors to explore the mysteries of the unknown and the possibility of the sacred.
Lasting approximately 22 minutes, Ghostlight was commissioned for eighth blackbird by the Abe Fortas Memorial Fund of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. eighth blackbird premieres the work at the Terrace Theater as part of the Kennedy Center's Fortas Chamber Music Concerts on March 7, 2016. Special thanks are due to: Jamie Broumas, Director of Classical and New Music Programs at the Kennedy Center, the staff of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago—in particular, Peter Taub and Lynne Warren, whose exhibit "The Conjured Life" first brought the paintings of Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo into my life—Jeffrey Edelstein, and Eileen Mack.
Ghostlight is dedicated to the current and former members of eighth blackbird.
—David T. Little (December 1, 2015)