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Duo
2019
Flute
Soprano
- Program Notes
- Reading is one of the stand-alone pieces in an immersive music theater series named Bedroom Performance. It portraits Alice James, a female figure who died just before the first feminist movement. She was the younger sister of Henry James and William James. At young age, she showed abundant talent in literature. However, similar to many other brilliant women in that period, Alice felt uncomfortable exhibiting her brightness in public. She sensed an invisible yet unbreakable wall between herself and the male dominant society, therefore remained in her comfort zone (i.e. her bedroom) throughout the most of her lifetime. This duet piece intends to revisit her fear of engaging in a formal dialogue with the public. I used vocal gestures that comprise with only vowels. The absence of consonants allows the audience to experience Alice’s frustration of incapacity of exhibiting her voice in public.