From the Sea, Brought Wealth
Employing creative mimesis, "From the Sea, Brought Wealth" seeks to evoke the fog's spectral and nebulous phenomenon, and its sonic counterpoint, the foghorn.
"E Mari Merces (Wealth from the Sea)"
- official city motto of Halifax, Nova Scotia
Employing creative mimesis, "From the Sea, Brought Wealth" seeks to evoke the fog's spectral and nebulous phenomenon, and its sonic counterpoint, the foghorn. Through verse, voice, performance, and musical resonance, "From the Sea, Brought Wealth" intends to interpret the mechanics of fog's elusive and enveloping visitations in relationship to its accompanying musical signal(s) sounded by the foghorn. The nautical horn's dark timbres, arrangements, and imbued meanings are entangled in one's obfuscated spending in and moving through the fog. Historically, we hear the foghorn as a device of sonic duplicity/complicity, a sirens call. The fog horn's sounding signal assists the ship through poor visibility and aids in the successful transport of "goods" (bodies, weapons, toys, contraband, food, medicine, etc.).
The work's primary component is a cyclical poem--a text of apprisal and inquiry--sung to both (pro)claim and elucidate the cloud(ed). We offer an invitation for witnesses to immerse themselves in the precarious balancing act(ion) of present and historical salvation and despair, illumination and darkness between the fog and its horn companion.
