Notes (Long and Short program notes below)

Kairos long program note:
This piece is about time, from a presentation in the first movement of a nightmare vision of time out of synch (which is our post-modern condition), to the evocation of seasonal time embodied in a dark spring evening which follows, and time as marked by the free and energized physical energy of youth in the last movement.

Kairos is an ancient Greek word for time; there is a god of the same name in Greek mythology. In contrast to Chronos (the more commonly used quantitative word for measured ordinary time), Kairos refers to a qualitative sense of ripeness, a liminal period of opportunity during which transformation is possible. In Christian practice the word Kairos is associated both with eternity and with social justice movements; the Lutheran theologian Paul Tillich uses the term to refer to points of existential crisis that demand the choice of a new way.

We find ourselves at just such a point of historical crisis. Since the piece was commissioned by the Michigan School Band and Orchestra Association, as I contemplated writing a piece for young musicians, I kept returning to a sense of the urgent need for transformation if our world is going to be any kind of a hospitable place for future generations to live. And, of course, the dimensions of that moral and ethical transformation are in the hands of our young people. The work is written in honor of Elizabeth Green, the beloved conductor, educator, and violinist. In learning about her, I was struck by her notion of seminal “musical moments” as well as by repeated references to her feverish work habits and emphatic statements that “time meant nothing to her.” Conductors, of course, work with time itself, and education as a discipline arranges itself around
moments of transformation.

I begin to think that one of our primary contemporary ailments is that we are all time-sick, trapped bouncing without resolution between the colliding temporal dimensions imposed on us by our media, our technologies, our society, our conscious selves, and our environments. The title of first movement comes from one of my favorite diary entries of Franz Kafka in which he presents this kind of unreconcilable temporal dislocation in terms of an inner-outer duality: “The clocks are not in unison; the
inner one runs crazily on at a devilish or demoniac or in any case inhuman pace, the outer one limps along at its usual speed. What else can happen but that the two worlds split apart, and they do split apart, or at least clash in a fearful manner.”

The second movement offers a refuge from clashing timescapes, and is envisioned as a brief nocturne. The title “The Queen of Spring” references both a more animistic ritual relationship between self and season as well as an anecdote that was related to me about the work’s dedicatee: she once winkingly introduced herself to a group as “The Queen” (Elizabeth) “of Spring” (Green). I’m told she loved her garden, and I imagine that our immersion in the mysteries of the seasons to be one antidote to our timesickness.

“Being-time” often refers to moments of pure awareness—here I intend it to invoke a sense of time as upwelling from within our animal bodies, time as one with the free flow of spontaneous movement. The god Kairos is usually depicted as running with winged feet; one must imagine him running with joy. There is a tip of the hat here to Arcangelo Corelli, as the first movement of his Concerto Grosso op. 6 no. 4 is one of the most joyful pieces of music I’ve ever encountered. It’s an old favorite, and was a great love of mine in my teenage years.

EC
Kairos- short program note:

This piece is about time, from a presentation in the first movement of a nightmare vision of time out of synch (which is our post-modern condition), to the evocation of seasonal time embodied in a dark spring evening which follows, and time as marked by the free and energized physical energy of youth in thelast movement.

Kairos is an ancient Greek word for time; there is a god of the same name in Greek mythology. In contrast to Chronos (the more commonly used quantitative word for measured ordinary time), Kairos refers to a qualitative sense of ripeness, a liminal period of opportunity during which transformation is possible.

The work dedicated to Elizabeth Green, the beloved conductor, educator, and violinist; it was commissioned by the Michigan School Band and Orchestra Association in her honor. Conductors, of course, work with the medium of time itself, and education as a discipline arranges itself around moments of transformation.

Kenneth Kiesler gave the premiere in October of 2010 with the University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra.
EC