dredge i

“The [Mississippi] river is always switching direction as it seeks the path of least resistance, and the ocean is always fighting it, eating away at the sedimentary land… This watery maze is called ‘the bayou,’ and the individual streams in the maze are also called ‘bayous,’ as though each small waterway contained the complexity of the swampy whole. ” —Jake Bittle, The Great Displacement

From 2019–2024 I lived two miles from the Mississippi River as it meanders around New Orleans. Nowhere in my life have I been more aware of the local climate, how the environment around me behaves and how it responds to humans. The Mississippi has always navigated its own way through the lower delta and into the Gulf of Mexico, leaving a meandering wake through the swamp. This structured meandering fascinates me, a singular entity pulling water from the entire country splitting and churning through its last inexorable motion. It’s a model that resonates with my sense of sonic material, a mass of content moving through itself and responding to its boundaries, dredging up a path in the process. In dredge i the performers navigate fragile material through such a journey, and are accompanied by additional free improvisers complicating the path. The score encourages new movement and uncovers novel sonic behavior, letting the performers dwell with their sounds and the complex environment in which they find themselves, each sound simultaneously independent and part of the swampy whole.

dredge i was commissioned and premiered by Versipel New Music (New Orleans), and additionally supported by the Ucross Artist Residency 2024.

Performed by Ensemble Mise-En during MISE-EN Festival 2025 in New York City, New York.