7F (2015)
bass clarinet
c. 6 minutes
Premiered by Timothy Bonenfant
Carr Education-Fine Arts Building, San Angelo, TX, 20 February 2019
c. 6 minutes
Premiered by Timothy Bonenfant
Carr Education-Fine Arts Building, San Angelo, TX, 20 February 2019
In May 2015, when I was finishing my master’s degree at Butler University in Indianapolis, my roommate and I noticed a strange smell in the hallway outside of our Meridian Street apartment. The smell grew stronger as the week progressed until it completely overpowered everything else. Then, one day, it was gone, and I thought little of the stench after it disappeared.
A few weeks later, I bumped into the apartment’s maintenance manager, who revealed the source of the smell: a woman who lived down the hall from us had died alone in her apartment, and no one found her body for over a week.
I never met the woman who lived in apartment 7F. I didn’t know her name; if I had walked by her in the parking garage I wouldn’t have recognized her. But I thought about her for weeks after I learned of her death. I composed 7F (2015) during those weeks as I processed the news of her death and my own regret for never having known her. The fast, aggressive low notes that make up the bulk of the work are my interpretation of the gradually growing smell. Just before the final explosive burst of notes, the bass clarinet quotes the beginning of the In paradisum chant from the Catholic Requiem Mass, marking my own farewell to the neighbor I never met.
A few weeks later, I bumped into the apartment’s maintenance manager, who revealed the source of the smell: a woman who lived down the hall from us had died alone in her apartment, and no one found her body for over a week.
I never met the woman who lived in apartment 7F. I didn’t know her name; if I had walked by her in the parking garage I wouldn’t have recognized her. But I thought about her for weeks after I learned of her death. I composed 7F (2015) during those weeks as I processed the news of her death and my own regret for never having known her. The fast, aggressive low notes that make up the bulk of the work are my interpretation of the gradually growing smell. Just before the final explosive burst of notes, the bass clarinet quotes the beginning of the In paradisum chant from the Catholic Requiem Mass, marking my own farewell to the neighbor I never met.