Monument IV: I was a stranger and you gave me no welcome

MONUMENT IV: I WAS A STRANGER AND YOU GAVE ME NO WELCOME
double bass and live electronics
Duration: c.8 minutes

Program notes:
I was a stranger and you gave me no welcome (2018) is a response to US immigration policies, especially the practice of separating children from parents in families seeking asylum in the United States. The work opens with layered loops of harmonics exploring the extreme high registers of the bass, to which the main body adds low resonant chords to build a shifting, full-register backdrop to a searing, somber chant-like melody.

I was a stranger and you gave me no welcome was written for bassist Grant Blaschka as a collaboration for the 2018 SPLICE Institute at Western Michigan University. As with other works in my Monument series, this work is written as a monument in memory and honor of victims of unjust violence.