Karen Siegel
Lessons of Stone for
I. Fleeting
A year lasts a moment
A moment lasts a year
II. Floating
(no text; changing vowel sounds)
III. Falling
Falling from light
Falling from strength
Falling from truth
Backwards into darkness
IV. Lasting
When we are gone
They will still be brilliant, They will still be calm.
When we are gone
They will still have purpose, They will still have depth.
When we are gone
They will still be living. They will still be here
Karen Siegel
Program Notes
Lessons of Stone is a choral sound installation in four movements with music and text by Karen Siegel. It is inspired by the life and artwork of Isamu Noguchi, and was originally created for performance at the Noguchi Museum. It was commissioned by The Astoria Choir, with artistic director Adam Eggleston, in 2020 in celebration of the choir's 10th anniversary.
Please feel free to wander the museum as you wish, pausing to listen to as much or as little of the music as you desire. The four movements of the work will each be repeated in the same space multiple times, with breaks for the performers to change locations. You may choose to listen to the different sections of music bleed into each other in the spaces in-between the performances.
The music consists of musical phrases repeated aleatorically, meaning involving an element of chance since each singer decides independently when to sing their part. The result is a flowing texture that is slightly different with each performance.
The movement "Fleeting" is about the elasticity of time as experienced by Noguchi when he formed his massive granite sculptures. The movement "Falling" reflects on Noguchi's experience as a Japanese American during World War II Noguchi voluntarily entered an internment camp, providing landscape design for his fellow Japanese Americans. The movement "Lasting" expresses Noguchi's affinity for stone as his medium.
And the movement "Floating" is a wordless meditation on the quality of light in the Floating Gallery of Noguchi's design.
Performance Notes
Lessons of Stone is intended to be performed as a choral sound installation, and was created specifically for performance at the Noguchi Museum. It may also be performed at other museums or locations featuring sculpture or landscape architecture by Isamu Noguchi, or other suitable locations. It is possible to present a concert performance as well, which is why there is a specific order for the movements. Ideally, though, the listeners should be able to move freely through the performance space, hearing the movements bleed into each other grow in prominence or fade as one moves towards or away from the sound.
The premiere by the Astoria Choir at the Noguchi Museum in June 2024 presented two movements at a time, with each sub-choir performing the whole work twice. Each movement was performed in the specific gallery for which it was written, and the pairings of which two movements were performed at the same time varied. Depending on the size of the choir and the number of discrete performance spaces, up to four movements may be performed simultaneously, provided that the space allows for the sound to overlap only at the peripheries of each performance space.
Throughout the work, phrases within a box followed by an arrow are to be repeated aleatorically for the duration indicated by the arrow on the staff. Singers should feel free to breathe in-between repetitions (or not), and may take subtle liberties with rhythm and tempo. Entrances should be staggered; it may be useful to designate a singer on each voice part to come in right away, another singer on each voice part to come in late, and let everyone else come in as they may. The overall effect of this type of aleatoric technique should be flowing, with a continuous profusion of randomly occurring sounds like a babbling brook, entirely obscuring the sense of meter and beats. A number above a measure (over the line indicating aleatoric repetition) indicates how many times the duration of the measure should be repeated. Only the conductor should count in their head, so that the choir is free of metric restraints.
1. Fleeting: In this movement, singers may complete each phrase before moving on to the new one. Cutoffs should still be precise, with singers stopping mid-phrase.
II. Floating: In this movement, singers should try to avoid cutting off mid-phrase, while also avoiding have a previous phrase overlap with the new one. It is more important to begin the new harmony on-time than to complete the previous phrase, if one must choose between the two. Even though there should not be metric clarity, the shifts to each harmony are unified, like a river of sound changing color at regular intervals.
The entrances should still be staggered, however, which will cause many singers to take a short rest at each harmony change.
The vowels are represented by IPA symbols (see https://www.ipachart.com/ for recordings of how to pronounce each one.) Please note that [ʊ] (as in “put”) is approximately halfway between [u] and [o], while [ʌ] (as in “putt”) is approximately halfway between [o] and [a]. Dotted arrows from one vowel to another indicate a gradual transformation of the vowel. Singers should change their vowels uniformly, and at an even rate.
Singers should remember to take frequent, slow breaths between repetitions of a phrase, relaxing the larynx with each breath. Doing so more often than seems necessary will help avoid fatigue.
As the title implies, this movement should have a quality of lightness and joy.
III. Falling: In this movement there are two types of aleatoric phrases. The phrases within box and followed by an arrow should be treated as in the other movements. Those within a box that are marked by an asterisk and not followed by an arrow should be sung only once by each singer, staggered so that the phrase is heard in at least one voice for approximately the duration of the box. As with the other type of aleatoric phrase, singers should take care not to be together and should not follow metric constructs. Each phrase should be complete in this latter type of “restricted” aleatory. The overall sound is similarly flowing, yet regulated to a relatively short span of time and ending on a unison note.
The “regular” aleatoric phrases should be cut off mid-phrase for precise cut-offs, as in “Fleeting.” In this movement, when switching from one “regular” aleatoric phrase to another, the shift should be made immediately without finishing the phrase (while still staggering the entrance).
IV. Lasting: In this movement, as in “Floating,” singers should try to avoid cutting off mid-phrase, while also avoiding have a previous phrase overlap with the new one It is especially important that there is no overlap of old and new phrases in the choir during the soprano solo at the end, so that the harmony changes are clearly defined.
Lessons of Stone
Karen Siegel
III. Falling
* Stagger entrances dramatically, so that the phrase is stretched out to approximately the duration shown by the box. Sing each phrase only once.
Karen Siegel
Karen Siegel