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Self-Portrait with White Coat (Appointment Scene from the opera "Patience") 2025 "This scene takes place in the mind of the Patient. She remembers two appointments with two different doctors, and hallucinates them overlapping. In one, she was too well-seeming to be believed to be that sick, and in the other she was too ill-seeming to be anything more than hypochondriac or hysterical. By separating the Patient character from the proscenium and heavily processing her voice, I depict the Doctors and the Patient as being on literal different planes of existence in addition to being different social classes, health statuses, and communication modes. In order to be believed, someone must be heard first. Her voice falls on deaf ears; despite being in the same exam room, the providers and the Patient are in different worlds. All the text is taken from real notes by medical professionals from an actual patient's medical record."
Performed and recorded live on August 10th, 2025 at Seiji Ozawa Hall, Tanglewood Music Festival. Commissioned by the Tanglewood Music Center.