Lichtenberg Figures are the red, branching scars that appear on the skin of people who have been struck by lightning. I first ran across this term in a young adult novel about a high-school boy with electrical powers. Almost a decade later, it popped up again through my studies of modern American poetry. They inspired a sonnet sequence by Ben Lerner, who uses unconventional poetic structures in order to interrogate the experience of memory—the lightning scars serving as a metaphor. His work stimulated my thinking about my own strange experiences with memory.
While toying with the theme of memory, I made connections to my own experiences with ADHD. I treat certain musical properties through the lens of aloof inattentiveness. Pitches in the strings form dark miasmas as they drift into and out of focus. Melodies are fleeting, disappearing before reforming once more in a constant cycle. This idea of the ephemeral, but reoccurring nature of memory influences all parts of the work.
Ultimately, the music seeks to evoke Lerner’s (and my own) fascination with human memory, encapsulating the painful beauty I see in these red scars.
Lichtenberg Figures was commissioned by the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players through the ARTZenter Emerging Composer’s Completion Grant.
