11:34 - Anger

In Dante’s Inferno, the wrathful are condemned to wage battle upon the River Styx, an endless struggle of rage and violence. Yet in 11:34, this conflict is not a furious storm but a frozen moment in time. The movement unfolds slowly, as though the weight of anger has thickened the air itself, suspending the fight in an eternal, suffocating stillness. The title 11:34 emerged from a fleeting yet uncanny reflection: a phone screen mirrored in glass, its digits reversing to spell HELL. This distorted image, an abstraction of something familiar, yet made unsettling, mirrors the music itself. Anger does not erupt; it lingers, festers, and stretches across time. Fragments of motion appear and decay, ghostly remnants of violence that can never be resolved. Here, wrath is not an explosion but a stasis. Winner of the Clare College Music Society Composition Competition 2025

Clare College Music Society, May Week Concert, 22/06/2025 Conducted by Evie Perfect