Notes on Becoming (2021)

for amplified voice+viola soloist and sinfonietta orchestra

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Notes on Becoming is a bespoke piece of music for the wonderful violist, singer, and poet Jacqui Armbruster to showcase their inimitable artistry and creativity. The piece features text written by Jacqui and is in three parts, outlining a narrative trajectory of self-exploration and acceptance.

Poet’s Note:

“The three poems in the piece grapple with identity in different forms. I wrote them at a time when it felt like my entire life was in a painful transition- reaching the end of my undergraduate program and wondering what was going to come next, discovering my gender identity as a non-binary person, grieving the loss of a long-term relationship and wondering who I was without it. The first words I wrote were what became the ending of the piece, “to be cut wide open/ to fade to nothing/ isn’t that something?/ to be cut wide open” and it took me until the end of this project to realize that the vulnerable transition, the “becoming”, is a beautiful place to be.”

-Jacqui Armbruster

(Jacqui and Benjamin on Oberlin’s campus)

Performances:

October 29th, 2021- Finney Chapel, Oberlin

Performed by Jacqui Armbruster, Tim Weiss, and the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble

Texts by Jacqui Armbruster (2021):

I. i am

i’ve been writing in circles, trying to connect
the fading memories that have not left me yet
i’ve been piecing together clumsy patchwork dreams remembering days i thought were evergreen

i’ve been watching the world spin reaching out for something i can hold onto

'cause i’ve been a mother and i’ve been a child i’ve been in shackles and i have run wild
i’ve been a lover and i’ve teemed with hate i’ve been so patient but i cannot wait

any longer as i watch the world spin when i don’t know where i begin
or belong

i’ve been the flowers that bloom in the spring i’ve been the snow-falling on everything
i’ve been the moon and i’ve been the sun
i’ve been the world but i cannot give one

to you, you’re a mountain that i've yet to climb
you, far ahead
as i fall behind

fall out and spill over and remember when i had so little, with nothing to spend

but now i’ve seen plenty though sometimes i’m blind oh i am becoming
and maybe one day you’ll find out who
i am
i am
i am

II. blue

i awoke to see
the morning sky opening through clouded thoughts and miles of smog
i saw blue

went downstairs for a cup hoping it could pick me up but the first sip
touched my lips

and turned them blue

and there’s birds up in the sky dropping feathers as they fly
i look for red
but instead

they’re all blue

i met a boy, he took my hand and for hours i swam
in his eyes
the darkest shade of blue

he went away in search of green promised to bring some back for me and in his place
that big, empty space
all turned blue

now i sit and watch the cars
the lovers underneath the stars and as they kiss
i reminisce
about you

and i'm trying to forget
the promises you never kept try as i might
i cannot fight
that all the world is blue

III. open

a sacred and painful unfurling of all i have kept trapped within emerging with urgency
what has always been
in front of you
boiling under the surface coming into the light
and pushing through towards endless tomorrows
where joy and sorrow
are one and it is okay
to be clumsy and to
bleed and to misstep
because being is fleeting
and beautiful

Cadenza: on letting go

to be cut wide open to fade into nothing isn’t that something? to be cut wide open