Program Notes

The Allegory of Everywhere is the first long form work I have ever completed. In the past year, this project has undergone countless revisions, reimaginings, and open-heart surgeries. It’s hard to believe what started as a Pinterest board pipe dream has actually come together. In the simplest terms, this piece is an exploration of the "American Gothic", a barely defined genre of art that analyzes the aesthetic landscapes present across the United States, how they differ, and most importantly, how they stay the same. In The Allegory of Everywhere, I will patch together the mementos and hallmarks of the places I grew up, places I've visited, and places I’ll never be; and find the common denominator of it all, if there is one.

Everywhere is a collage of references, memories, and crises. In 2021, I moved from Texas to California with the hopes of finding a place that would be all the things my conservative relatives warned me about: tree huggers, communists, the gay agenda. It was naive to expect I would find these things. What I found was a massive, sprawling city that came with all the same problems of Texas: rampant pollution, natural disasters, concrete overpasses, and folks who are unkind. For the past four years, I’ve felt so lost. stretching myself between two states quickly turned from chic and cosmopolitan to distressing and confusing.

I’ve always loved being on the road, even more once I learned to drive. It’s meditative. I love that road trips give you the opportunity to visit eclectic little corners of this vast country that you would never see otherwise. The mixes I listen to on these trips are a primary inspiration for this piece, each song is associated with a different place and time. My favorite part of the road is watching the landscape morph in real time from plains to desert to mountains to coast. This is what everywhere ultimately is to me— the in-between. I belong anywhere and nowhere.

Link to expanded program notes.

VIII. Cowpuncher

Text: "Charlie Rutlage" by John A. Lomax/Charles Ives

Another good cowpuncher has gone to meet his fate,

I hope he’ll find a resting place, within the golden gate.

Another place is vacant on the ranch of the X I T, ‘Twill be hard to find another that’s liked as well as he.

The first that died was Kid White, a man both tough and brave,

While Charlie Rutlage makes the third to be sent to his grave,

Caused by a cowhorse falling, while running after stock;

‘Twas on the spring round up, a place where death men mock,

He went forward one morning on a circle through the hills,

He was gay and full of glee, and free from earthly ills;

But when it came to finish up the work on which he went,

Nothing came back from him; his time on earth was spent.

‘Twas as he rode the round up, a XIT turned back to the herd;

Poor Charlie shoved him in again, his cutting horse he spurred;

Another turned; at that moment his horse the creature spied

And turned and fell with him, beneath poor Charlie died,

His relations in Texas his face never more will see,

But I hope he’ll meet his loved ones beyond in eternity,

I hope he’ll meet his parents, will meet them face to face,

And that they’ll grasp him by the right hand at the shining throne of grace.

IX. cool water

Texts: "Cool Water" by Bob Nolan and "Barstow: Eight Hitchhiker Inscriptions from a Highway Railing at Barstow, California" by Harry Partch

All day I've faced a barren waste without the taste of water

Cool water

Old Dan and I with throats burnt dry and souls that cry for water

Cool, clear water

The nights are cool and I'm a fool, each star's a pool of water

Cool water

And with the dawn I'll wake and yawn and carry on to water

Cool, clear water

Keep a-movin' Dan, don't you listen to him Dan, he's a devil, not a man and he spreads the burning sand with water

Dan, can you see that big green tree?

Where the water's running free and it's waiting there for you and me?

Water, cool, clear water

It's January twenty-six. I'm freezing. Ed Fitzgerald, age nineteen, five feet ten inches, black hair, brown eyes. Going home to Boston Massachusetts. It's four, and I'm hungry and broke. I wish I was dead. But today, I am a man.

Why in hell did you come, anyway? Damn it anyhow, here I am stuck in the cold. I've come twenty-seven hundred miles...Slept along the highway, slept in open boxcar without top, went hungry for 2 days (raining too). But they say there's a hell, what the hell do they think this is? I'm on my way, one half of desert to the east, then back to LA to try once more.

X. I have found it.

Text: folksong "Farther Along"

Tempted and tried we're oft made to wonder why it should be thus all the day long

While there are others living about us, never tormented*, though in the wrong

When death has come and taken our loved ones, it leaves our home so lonely and dreary

Then do we wonder why others prosper living so wicked year after year

Farther along we'll know all about it; farther along we'll understand why

Cheer up, my brother; live in the sunshine, we'll understand it all by and by.