Matana Roberts

“Stitched”

I make music for the purpose of illuminating and supporting the inner lives of many different types of listeners and sound practitioners. It is service work that I feel so privileged to have in my creative life. This piece structure is a complex representation of the hope, joy and sadness we have collectively traveled through and are still traveling through, as global citizens in the midst of the Covid 19 pandemic.

Through the worst of times and the best of times, sound continuously resonates. A sob, a cry, a laugh, a whimper, a guffaw, a sigh and all the many types of joyful outbursts that are intrinsic to the human experience, regardless of the various boundaries that are used to separate and distract us. It is my hope, that in a listening or performance rendering of this piece, we are reminded that opposites exist for a reason, that any ending, no matter how painful, is a new beginning, and that the unwavering vastness of the human spirit is what holds us together as a collective humanity, regardless of dire circumstance. Hope is not dependable, but the thought of it is there for the taking, whenever one might dare to ask...I wish you strength, faith and a limitless sense of hope.—Matana Roberts

”Stitched” was generously and jointly commissioned by Boston Symphony Orchestra & Celebrity Series (Boston, MA)