David Simon
notes
Privilege is a collection of five short pieces, to be performed individually or as a set. The first and third movements are settings of little texts questioning a contemporary privileged life (mine). The second and fourth movements are set to portions of Bill Moyers' 2009 interview with David Simon. Casino sets Simon's response to Moyers' question: "Why do you think that we tolerate such gaps between rich and poor?" They get it addresses the idea that there is a large segment of our population whose existence is unnecessary to the American economy, especially those who are "undereducated, that have been ill served by the inner city school system, that have been unprepared for the technocracy of the modern economy." The final movement, We Cannot Leave, is set to an English translation of As' Kwaz' uKuhamba, a Xhosa anti-Apartheid song. South Africa has a strong tradition of music being used as a tool to fight societal oppression and inequality. The setting is a tribute to that practice.
text:
1. motive/mission
motive/mission
you were always fair
you were almost always kind
weren't you?
you always reached out your hand
you almost always refused to lie
didn't you?
you wouldn't close your shining eyes
would you?
(Ted Hearne)
2. casino
it's almost like a casino
you're looking at the guy winning,
you're looking at the guy who pulled the lever
and all the bells go off
and all the coins are coming
out of a one-armed bandit
and you're thinking
that could be me.
i'll play by those rules.
(David Simon)
3. burning tv song
flashing window
empty street
burning tv song
flashing window
empty street
burning tv song
flashing window
empty street
burning tv song
stay
(Ted Hearne)
4. they get it
we pretend to need them
we pretend to educate the kids
but we don't
and they're not foolish
they get it
(David Simon)
5. we cannot leave
we cannot leave
this land of our ancestors
on this earth
we are being killed by the monster
on this earth
shuku shuku
oh, mother, it's leaving me behind!
i want to get on the train
to get on the train in the morning
i want
oh, mother, it's leaving me behind!
(traditional Xhosa, translated by Patiswa Nombona and Mollie Stone)
an additional note! (dated 10.23.19)
Recently, a choir director emailed me a question regarding the last movement of this piece: “One of our singers has questioned the value of the movement, and considers it appropriative of South African indigenous culture. I was wondering if you would respond to that, for us?”
This is an important question, and as Western artists it is incumbent on us to grapple with the impact that centuries of colonialism has had on our work and our practices, even as these impacts may be divorced from our conscious “intention.”
Working through complicated questions is a part of why I’m an artist, and remaining open to new perspectives, accepting and moving through parts of work or practices that may be problematic, is important to me. For the purposes of facilitating further discussion around this and other work, here’s an excerpt of the response I sent that person:
“The piece deals with appropriation in several ways, and of course the singer you mention is correct that the last movement is appropriative: I used the lyrics of a traditional Xhosa song, sung during the forced removals of black South Africans from District 6 in Cape Town in the late 60's and after, and set them to music I wrote, including them alongside settings of other source texts and original texts in a work I called "Privilege." I wrote the piece as a way of processing the impact and experience my own privilege.
Appropriation is and has been a vital tool of almost all art forms, and is nearly inescapable in the intertextual world we live in. It can be a vehicle for harnessing the power of reference and irony, and a means to subtle expression. It can also be a vehicle for exploitation and erasure. How does creative appropriation serve or subvert existing power dynamics? For me this is the key question. I'm fascinated by the practice of text setting that does not pretend to adopt the voice of the speaker/author, but which rather holds that voice at a critical distance in order to examine difference.
I learned the original song Az Kwaz uKuhamba from my colleague Mollie Stone, a choral conductor and scholar who has made a lifelong practice of learning Xhosa and Zulu choral music and incorporating that music and philosophies of music for political change into her mission as a choral director in the U.S. I wrote "Privilege" after having spent a few months in South Africa with Mollie, where I travelled around the country working with and learning music from choirs who were adapting the vibrant tradition of anti-Apartheid choral music into more contemporary interpretations that addressed the ongoing crisis of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. (I found it incredible how the political import and protest power of the music was being used to turn a critical lens on the very leaders -- Thabo Mbeki, Jacob Zuma and other ANC heroes -- who had been on the front lines fighting apartheid a few decades ago yet were at that time, in 2006, in positions of power denying AIDS and refusing to import and make available antiretroviral drugs to a population that was suffering under something like a 30% infection rate.)
Mollie and Patiswa together made an English translation of this text that captured the poetic inflection of the Xhosa. Because this is notated music and the original Az Kwaz is music from an aural tradition, and because I am not South African, I would not presume to (and had no interest in) making an arrangement of the original song. But I was interested in what ideas would be provoked if a new musical setting both tributized the Xhosa tradition I learned so much from but also placed it in the context of inequality, systemic injustice in the US. It goes without saying that Privilege must be performed with the text and proper source attribution of all the movements printed, so that the audience may clearly differentiate between what is my work and what is the work of others, because if they can't the essential juxtaposition is lost.”
Privilege
ensemble choir (SSATB)
duration 14 minutes, in five movements
text David Simon, from an interview by Bill Moyers; Ted Hearne; traditional Xhosa translated by Mollie Stone and Patiswa Nombona
commissioned by Volti
written fall 2009-winter 2010
premiere May 2010, San Francisco
publisher Unsettlement Music
recordings Volti, House of Voices (Innova Records, 2012)
The Esoterics, Sirene (Esoteric Records, 2013)
The Crossing, Sound from the Bench (Cantaloupe Music, 2017)
selected additional performances
C4, New York, Chris Baum, director; November 2010
Volti, San Francisco/Berkeley, Robert Geary, director; March 2011
The Crossing, Philadelphia, Donald Nally, director; October 2012
The Esoterics, Seattle, Eric Banks, director; March 2012
University of Washington Chamber Singers; May 2012
WORKS
LARGE WORKS WITH VOICES
Farming (2023, 60 min.)
24 voices, 6 instruments
Place (2018/2020, 80 min.)
6 voices, 18 instruments
In Your Mouth/Dorothea (2019)
voice and ensemble; voice and piano
Sound from the Bench (2014/2017, 40 min.)
mixed choir with 2 electric guitars and percussion
Coloring Book (2015, 30 min.)
vocal octet
The Source (2014, 65 min.)
7 instruments, 4 voices
Partition (2010, 20 min.)
mixed choir with full orchestra
Katrina Ballads (2007, 60 min.)
11 instruments, 5 voices
ORCHESTRA
In Thrall (2019, 15 min.)
wind ensemble
Brass Tacks (2018, 6 min.)
large orchestra
Miami in Movements (2017, 35 min.)
large orchestra with video
Dispatches (2015, 18 min.)
large orchestra
Respirator (2015, 13 min.)
chamber orchestra
Stem (2013, 25 min.)
large orchestra
Law of Mosaics (2012, 30 min.)
string orchestra
Erasure Scherzo (2012, 6 min.)
large orchestra
Word for Word (2011, 10 min.)
large orchestra
Shizz (2010/2017, 4 min.)
versions for large orchestra and chamber orchestra
Build a Room (2010, 20 min.)
concerto for trumpet and orchestra
Patriot (2007, 9 min.)
large orchestra
SOLO WORKS
Lobby Music (2021, 7 min.)
solo cello, with electronics
Inheritance (2021, 5 min.)
solo piano
The Luminous Road (2020, 2 min.)
solo piccolo
Distance Canon (2020, 3 min.)
solo violin
Another National Anthem (2019, 5 min.)
solo piano
DaVZ23BzMH0 (2016, 7 min.)
solo cello, with electronics
Parlor Diplomacy (2011, 20 min.)
solo piano
Nobody's (2010, 4 min.)
solo violin or viola
CHAMBER MUSIC
(2-5 instruments)
Exposure (2017, 18 min.)
string quartet
To Be the Thing (2017, 10 min.)
voice, electric guitar and percussion, with live electronics
The Answer to the Question That Wings Ask (2016, 11 min.)
string quartet and narrator
Furtive Movements (2013, 14 min.)
cello and percussion
Interlude for Fingers (2013, 4 min.)
two vibraphones
Candy (2011, 8 min.)
electric guitar quartet
Thaw (2009, 12 min.)
percussion quartet
Ghostspace (2009, 8 min.)
mixed quartet (accordion, electric guitar, piano, drums)
Vessels (2008, 10 min.)
trio (violin, viola, piano)
Crib Dweller (2007, 8 min.)
mixed quintet (bass clarinet, elec. guitar, trumpet, trombone, horn)
23 (2005, 8 min.)
mixed quintet (flute, horn, elec. guitar, piano, drums)
Warning Song (2006, 7 min.)
voice and cello, with electronics
One of Us, One of Them (2005, 8 min.)
piano and percussion
Forcefield (2004, 5 min.)
viola and vibraphone
MEDIUM TO LARGE ENSEMBLE MUSIC
(6-16 instruments)
To Be Whole Is To Be Part (2021, 7 min.)
14 musicians
Authority (2019, 30 min.)
10 musicians
Time is forever dividing itself toward innumerable futures [Speed is Pure] (2019, 40 min.)
for Pam Tanowitz Dance 4 horns, electric guitar, voice with live processing
One Like (2016, 7 min.)
14 musicians
For the Love of Charles Mingus (2016, 9 min.)
6 violins
Baby [an argument] (2016, 11 min.)
10 musicians
By-By Huey (2014, 10 min.)
sextet (fl, bcl, vln, vc, pno, perc)
"The Cage" Variations (2014, 20 min.)
6 instruments (fl, cl/bcl, vln, vc, pno, perc) with baritone solo
Crispy Gentlemen (2012, 15 min.)
7 instruments (fl/picc, cl/bcl, vln, vla, vc, pno, perc)
But I Voted for Shirley Chisholm (2012, 8 min.)
11 instruments+tape
Randos (2012, 8 min.)
7 instruments (L'Histoire septet)
Cutest Little Arbitrage (2011, 12 min.)
6 instruments (2 sax, trombone + rhythm section)
Is it Dirty (2010, 8 min.)
16 instruments with 2 singers
versions for 10 instruments and 6 instruments
Eyelid Margin (2009, 12 min.)
10 instruments (brass quintet + 5 double-reeds)
Snowball (2008, 6 min.)
8 instruments (bcl, tpt, tbn, vln, acc, egtr, pno, dr)
version for 7 instruments (bcl, bn, tpt, tbn, vln, db, perc)
Illuminating the Maze (2008/2016, 15 min.)
6 instruments (tpt, hn, tbn, egtr, pno, dr)
version for 11 instruments
Music from "Body Soldiers" (2008, 10 min.)
5 instruments + singer
Cordavi and Fig (2007, 8 min.)
13 instruments
Antiphon (2003, 8 min.)
9 instruments (3 cl, bcl, 3 tpt, tbn, pno)
CHORAL MUSIC
Texting With Your Dad in the Anthropocene (2019, 12 min.)
Animals (2018, 9 min.)
Fervor (2018, 3 min.)
What it might say (2016, 5 min.)
Coloring Book (2015, 30 min.)
Consent (2014, 7 min.)
Ripple (2012, 10 min.)
Privilege (2009, 14 min.)
Mass for St. Mary’s (2008, 10 min.)
Music for youth choir:
The Definition of Crisis (2020, 2-5 min.)
Room for Something (2011, 8 min.)
Away (2010, 6 min.)
Because (2006, 6 min.)
Murder on the Road in Alabama (2003, 6 min.)
SONG AND SOLO VOICE
Freefucked (2022)
voice and solo cello, with vocal processing and fixed electronics
Translation: Two Cigar Butts (2021)
two singers with electronics (optional piano and/or bass)
In Your Mouth/Dorothea (2019)
voice and ensemble; voice and piano
To Be the Thing (2017, 10 min.)
voice, electric guitar and percussion, with live electronics
Intimacy and Resistance (2010, 5 min.)
voice and piano
Charleston Songbook (2008, 20 min.)
voice and piano w/ lead sheets
I Remember (2007, 8 min.)
for three sopranos, or one soprano with electronics
I Carry Your Heart (2007, 5 min.)
voice and piano
Warning Song (2006, 7 min.)
voice and cello, with electronics
COLLABORATIVE WORKS
We Are Radios (2018)
Miami in Movements (2017)
The Answer to the Question That Wings Ask (2016,)
Hand Eye (2015)
New Dances for the League of David (2014)
You're Causing Quite a Disturbance (2013)
R WE WHO R WE (2013)
Histories (2012)