Paula Matthusen · Composer

on the tender gravity of kindness was commissioned by the Metropolis Ensemble as part of their House Music Series. The series was formed as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with many composers, performers, and musicians who have worked with Metropolis Ensemble performing from their homes or elsewhere nearby.

My own contribution to this effort involved performing by the Little Falls in Wadsworth Fall State Park in Middletown, CT. The piece works with a new synthesizer I had programmed in Max that allowed me to create a series of very simple canons using sine tones. These canons may be flexibly combined and interacted with using a range of tuning ratios and FM synthesis.

The piece formed a meditation on a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye, from which the piece draws its title. The recording featured as part House Music was a single live-take, with video footage and editing created by visual artist Tom Snelgrove.