Since 500 B.C. history records approximately 1196 rebellions, revolutions, revolts, uprisings and protests across the known world. Only a tiny fraction of these contestations of power have resulted in victories for the rebels. Nonetheless, as people struggle under the burden of systemic violence, the unrest remains seething if albeit petrified in our global midst. And though very few will admit it, calling these rebellions, revolutions, revolts, uprisings and protests the REAL history of our world is not unjustified. “You will be smashed like a piece of pottery— shattered so completely that there won’t be a piece big enough to carry coals from a fireplace or a little water from the well.” Isaiah 30:14 Clinging to the broken shards, klipot, are sparks of the light left over from inside the bowls. These precious sparks are to be gathered and restored to their original place, higher in the cosmos. A broken world, which today we experience as petrified unrest must be repaired, or, as we now see, we will suffer the consequences.

Inclusion by Hugh Levick

INSPIRED BY DOUBT by Hugh Levick An absurdist and metaphysical confrontation between forces of disorder, INSPIRED BY DOUBT is aggressive, lyrical, explosive and barely audible in turns and enacts a fragmented, gestural drama. From great pitch leaps to darkening speed to slapping the piano with slack hands, the music is incessantly seeking ‘a way out’. Requiring a pianist of tremendous technique and great vision (Yevgeniy Milyavskiy), INSPIRED BY DOUBT rarely ends up where it seems to be going.

PRAYER by Hugh Levick Performed by Tereza Stanislav Program Notes: PRAYER, duo for silences and solo violin was NOT the original title of this piece. The original title was WRECHO which to my mind indicated the echo of a wreckage. Without changing the music I changed the title since I felt that the visceral and disjointed quality of the piece was an adequately fervent expression of my hopes for the beautiful and shredded world in which we live.