Christine Beard performs “The Highest Arm” (soundwalk version) for flute and electronics by Michael Genese. Concert featuring members of the Flute New Music Consortium entitled “The Future is Now: Flute Music Since 2020” at the National Flute Association Convention in Phoenix, AZ. August 6, 2023.
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PROGRAM NOTE (extracted from the composer’s website at https://www.michaelgenese.com/thehighestarm):
The Highest Arm is structured around 2020’s slow invitations to an old reality, amidst daily protests calling to abolish the old normal, eradicate the oppressive systems this country was built upon, and create a reality where everyone can thrive.
Starting June 18, 2020, every Thursday for a year and a half, a march in NYC drew attention to the state of emergency Black trans women are experiencing– over 350 trans women of color murdered in 2020 alone. This group of activists and organizers is known as The Stonewall Protests. In 2020 and especially towards the end of October, we found ourselves marching past the newly reopened West Village restaurants, and the near-entirely white, gentrified crowds dining outside. A full drumline, flags from Nigeria, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Mexico, whipping through the air. Chants with the beat, fed through a PA system, responses yelled out in our masks, as many watching from their dinner tables felt their identity and privilege attacked. We were left with an incredibly intricate web of perceived realities and futures that autumn, and I hope for this piece to provide a snapshot of that feeling.
In the electronics track, you can a drumline from the actual Thursday protest, crowds, and violins and violas mimicking the popular graph of 2020 covid cases with a large peak and slow descent. There are also samples of pouring rain, the tambourine I played each week as it’s taken out of my bag, and an Italian wine menu from a place in the village, mispronounced for a waitstaff trying to feign politeness.
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The Highest Arm is also featured as the seventh and final track of Genese’s SRG Soundwalk about NYPD’s riot squad, the Strategic Response Group. The SRG consistently followed, intimidated, and brutalized The Stonewall Protests. Written in partnership with the New York Civil Liberties Union, the Soundwalk features seven electronic sound pieces composed around witness testimony and footage of the SRG, to educate New Yorkers not only about the police misconduct prevalent in our city, but what we can do within the scope of our immediate power to eradicate it.
The entire soundwalk can be experienced at bit.ly/disband-srg
COMPOSER BIO
MICHAEL GENESE [dʒə-nis] (he/they) is a composer, educator, tenor, and multi-instrumentalist. Genese’s work asks how sonic, artistic, and educational mediums can reveal new understandings of the self, and how the presence of intersectionality in our thinking can be fostered through ourinteractions with music. They hold degrees in Music Education, Vocal Performance, and Music Composition, having studied with Timo Andres, Han Lash, and Missy Mazzoli.
Genese is an Artist Ambassador with the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), a co-producer for The Choral Commons, and founding member of internationally acclaimed social justice artist’s collective, VOICES 21C. They teach private violin, piano, and voice lessons in New York City, and
work as the primary music theorist for New Bedford Symphony’s K-12 Music Keyword Equity Database, scheduled for publication in Fall 2023.
Genese’s broad-reaching work, distinctly as an educator and multimedia artist, is rooted in frameworks of abolition and restorative justice. They are currently presenting a soundwalk in partnership with NYCLU titled “SRG Soundwalk,” based in locations where the New York City police department’s Strategic Response Group (SRG) brutalized protestors in 2020-2021. The soundwalk aims to raise public consciousness not only about police (mis)conduct prevalent in New York City, but what can be done within the scope of our immediate power to eradicate it. Genese
echoes the sentiment that the arts and humanities can be invaluable tools for affecting states of consciousness and ignorance as art-makers and listeners, to further win the world we need.
http://michaelgenese.com | @michael_genese