Jane Damon
Performers are listed inside the program.
Sunday, April 6, 2025
2:30 pm
Recital Hall
6, 2025, 2:30 PM
Lockstep (2020) Jane Damon (b. 2001)
Jordan Wier, bassoon
Lizzie Mendoza, violin
Huey Chan, piano
Tangent (2022)
Tribute to the Unsung (2024) Metamorphoses (2021)
Olivhea Ross, Charlize Price, soprano
Elizabeth Neumeyer, Mia Janosik, alto
Michael Megenney, Ian Orejana, tenor
Daniel Campbell, Ernesto Pena, bass
Grace Coon, flute
Jayden Laumeister, oboe
Vanessa Lopez, clarinet
Jordan Wier, bassoon
Don Parker, horn
Variations on a Moment (2022)
Grace Coon, flute
Jayden Laumeister, oboe
Jordan Wier, bassoon
Huey Chan, piano
PROGRAM NOTES
Jane Damon is a senior composition major with an interest in making music for video games. She wishes to blend her interest in new music from her time with 28/78 New Music Collective with the more antiquated styles she had been learning previously, as well as the various styles and techniques found within video games. A cellist, singer, and theatre performer, Damon hopes to share her unique blend of perspectives with the world.
Notes by the composer
Lockstep
Lockstep was the first piece I had written during my time at Pacific, during the pandemic no less. It was largely inspired by Leavetaking, from the Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom Soundtrack, by Joe Hisaishi. Its plodding 5/4 time signature and incredibly powerful melody made me want to try my best at something in a similar style. I envisioned a battalion of soldiers marching towards a battle they were almost sure to lose, or at least take on heavy casualties, but had no other option but to continue their march forward, unwavering. The melodic line hangs on for as long as it can, but has no option except to resolve and continue towards its end.
Metamorphoses
Metamorphoses is inspired by the 8 AD Latin narrative poem by Roman poet Ovid of the same name, and the lyrics are drawn from the first few lines of the work. Despite my piece only using a few of the lines, the original was a series of fifteen books, all depicting the overarching and thoroughly weaved story of different mythological gods, characters, and events. I had previously seen an abridged play production of just a few of the many chapters, rewritten for a modern audience, and was curious to see what the whole work looked like. However, I was just drawn to the first few lines, as they were somewhat personified as the author Ovid himself speaking to the gods as he prepares to give their story.
Metamorphosis means “a transformation or dramatic change”, so I wished to show that within the techniques on display. Such things include mixed meter or modal structures that all base themselves around a cyclical, repeating form to give the feeling of transformation as the piece goes along, changing from one idea to the next.
PROGRAM NOTES
Tangent
Tangent, in tune with its name, is a bit of a sidestep from what I as a composer typically write, primarily when it comes to the instrumentation chosen. I am a cellist, and working in the woodwind and brass world has been quite challenging for me, but I wanted to take on the challenge in order to better understand these instruments in case I were able to write for them later on in my life. As for the notes themselves, they often pivot between legato and staccato playing, or long and short notes, to express the constantly diverging topic at hand. However, with that said, I wanted to make sure this piece didn’t dictate an argument between the supposed speakers, so the piece is kept floating around a major key, while keeping an energetic peppiness even in its slower moments.
Even if there are some slightly serious bits, the whole process is meant to feel a little silly and nonsensical, like a group of friends who can’t stop giving their own anecdotal experiences of working in customer service over the years. It is autological in that way, in that the piece is a definition of its own title. Speaking of tangents, did you know that the word tangent comes from the geometrical term? This is where a straight line is just barely touching another curved line, but does not move through it, thus giving the effect of it branching off to a new path. That was later applied to mean branching off onto a different train of thought as well, creating the word we know today.
Variations on a Moment
As program notes go, most of them are not very personal. They describe techniques used and the history behind the piece and any odd thing that goes into the music in a very dry, detached way. And I will certainly describe the techniques and history as well, because there is nothing wrong with that, for sure, don’t get me wrong. But because this piece is so personal to me, it is difficult to detach from my own life. You could even say it tells a true story.
Variations on a Moment is, at its core, a piece about me, the composer, Jane Damon, trying to work on the very piece you are about to listen to (or listening to right now). It follows a variation structure, with a theme and then further and further extrapolations of said theme. However, while the music is going through its variations, poetry describing the events of the story is interlaced on top of the music, going through variations of its own as well. Each passage is similar to the last, but slowly evolves to describe and emulate the feeling of spiraling and dissociation. The music will resonate with that feeling as well, using a lot of intervals that are dissonant, but have a shimmering, uncanny quality to them when played in succession, like major 2nds and perfect 4ths.
PROGRAM NOTES
After the piece finds its highest point, it wraps back around to the beginning, to start the cycle over again.
As program notes go, most of them are not very personal. But because this piece is so personal to me, it’s difficult to detach from my own life. You could even say it tells a true story.
Tribute to the Unsung
The titular "unsung" subject of this piece is no one person, or better described, no one thing. Instead, the Unsung are the many, many, many idiosyncratic ordinary objects that litter our daily lives. The bottle cap I lost while walking around San Francisco. The stripped screw for my old microphone stand. The new USBC to 3.5mm headphone jack I got that is already starting to break. My grandparents’ grandfather clock, which is now my grandfather clock; they won’t need it where they’re going. The Neapolitan horn earrings I bought in Sorrento, Italy. My purple Kayleigh Elise Jackalope t-shirt, with a hole in the front my mom sewed back together for me (thank you mom). The bag of fancy buttons I played with as a toddler. The discarded wax of a cupcake I threw away minutes before writing this. The old Nalgene bottle that accompanied me during several camping trips to several distant corners of the country.
Every one of these Unsung have a story. They are often shy, however, and don’t like to tell their tales to the owner that would use them and dismiss their dutiful work immediately upon breaking eye contact. But next time you think of something Unsung, listen. It may tell you just how much it has seen, both when you owned it and before it ever met you. My clock has taught me its many different hourly chimes. My earrings have let me in on the rich tradition around their creation. My lost bottle cap has told me about the clownfish it is rooming with. My Nalgene, covered in scratches and cracks after it took too many “accidental” blows to whatever post was closest, reminisces with me about the first time we both slept underneath the stars. Find what objects in your life are Unsung. Listen to the tales they have to tell. You may be the only person that they would ever share them with.
TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS
Metamorphoses
In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas corpora; di, coeptis (nam vos mutastis et illas) adspirate meis primaque ab origine mundi ad mea perpetuum deducite tempora carmen!
Translation: Metamorphoses
My mind is bent to tell of bodies changed into new forms; ye gods, for you yourselves have wrought the changes, breathe on these my undertakings, and bring down my song in unbroken strains from the world’s very beginning even unto the present time!
—trans. Frank Justice Miller
Variations on a Moment
The subtle wind from my desk fan blows at me. It sits across from me in the dark, an outline illuminated by the light of the streetlamp outside. My skin is cold, but it’s better than being hot. My laptop on my lap helps, the light heat radiating from beneath it warming my legs. I blink.
The subtle wind from my desk fan blows at me. It looms across from me in the dark, a silhouette barely illuminated by the light of the streetlamp outside. My skin is cold, but it’s better than being hot. The laptop on my lap helps, the light heat radiating from beneath it warming my legs. I blink.
Wind from a desk fan blows noisily at me. It looms across from me, a shadowed silhouette barely illuminated by the light of a streetlamp outside. My skin is cold, but being hot is worse. The computer in front of me radiates heat from beneath it onto my legs. I blink.
Wind from a metal fan blows noisily at me. It stands opposite me, a shady silhouette barely illuminated by the faint light of a streetlamp outside. My skin is uncomfortably cold, but the heat is much worse. A computer in front of me pulsates heat from beneath it onto my cold legs. I blink.
Wind flows forth from a metal fan across from me, bitter wind traveling over my legs. It stands opposed to me, a dark figure in the distance, barely illuminated by a buzzing streetlamp outside. My skin is uncomfortable, but the heat would be hell. Something in front of me pulsates heat from beneath it onto my cold legs. I blink.
Wind whirs at me from a cold machine across the room, bitter and sharp. It opposes me, the unknown figure in the distance, barely illuminated by the incessantly buzzing streetlamp outside. My skin shivers, the air around me cold and uninviting, and a heat within me burns, pulsating from my gut to my lungs and chest. The sensations are at war. I blink.
Howling forces barrel down on me from an unknown force ahead, unsympathetic and splitting. I’m assaulted by an unknown entity, barely implied by the incessantly buzzing streetlamp outside. The frigid gale covers me, my skin cracking and fraying. Nervous heat of adrenaline holds tight in my torso, screaming to run, find somewhere safe to hide. My brain is at war. I blink.
The crowd’s laughter connects with my body like a shockwave, unsympathetic and splitting. I’m in front of a packed house, twisted faces lit from the refractions of the stage lights above. A cold wave of guilt entombs my mind, and the burning lights and seething gaze push against the guilt with ferocity unseen. My body is frozen, primed to bolt at the first chance. I blink.
A hurricane wails at me, rain falling onto my shoulders, torrential and oppressive. I see in the distance, two eyes of a great beast stare me down. The street is wet, and I watch as the space between us is rapidly closed. I’m freezing from the cold, and barraged by the sounds of wind and the screams of the tires as they screech in front of me. There is no warmth, no power, no fear. My life is at war. I blink.
The subtle wind from my desk fan blows at me. It sits across from me in the dark, an outline illuminated by the light of the streetlamp outside. My skin is cold, but it’s better than being hot. My laptop on my lap helps, the light heat radiating from beneath it warming my legs.
I should stop working at night.
Tribute to the Unsung
The soul of a room is in its knick knacks Its thing-a-ma-bobs and paper stacks Without them, it’s surgical Without them, heart, it lacks
I don’t know what I would do without them. They help me see what is true.
—Jane Damon
They say that a home is where the heart lies
But that isn’t quite, entirely right
Because it’s the little things
Because it’s what makes every moment alive.
Think of the stories that can be told.
No matter how broken, no matter how old
And just think of what wonders, some of them must have seen The walls have nothing, on a plastic canteen.
The soul of a room is in its knick knacks Its thing-a-ma-bobs and paper stacks Without them, it’s surgical Without them, heart, it lacks.
—Jane Damon