MUSIC AND POLITICS
Music and global diplomacy
This page explores "Quicksand," a contemporary ensemble music piece for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion. This work is a profound musical response to world events and political issues, offering an insightful perspective on modern life through an innovative chamber setting.
QUICKSAND
for ensemble
Quicksand | World premiere performance | Collage New Music | David Hoose, conductor
Duration:
11 minutes
Instrumentation:
bass clarinet; violin; cello; percussion; piano
Year Composed:
2023
Written For:
Collage New Music, David Hoose, conductor
Commissioned by:
Collage New Music
Premiere Performance:
12 November, 2023
Cambridge, MA, United States
Collage New Music
David Hoose, conductor
Related Music:
About Quicksand
Quicksand is an 11‑minute work for bass clarinet, violin, cello, percussion, and piano, written in early 2023 for Collage New Music. The piece was composed during a moment of profound internal upheaval in Israel, when an unprecedented ultra‑right government initiated efforts to weaken democratic structures. The resulting crisis — political, social, cultural, and moral — created a sense that the ground itself was no longer stable.
The music grows directly out of this reality. Its central metaphor is that of a person suddenly pushed into quicksand: the shock, the instinctive struggle, the attempt to understand new and unforgiving rules of gravity, the grasping for anything solid, the careful movements meant to preserve strength, and the gradual recognition that the quicksand continues its work regardless. Around this struggle, the world appears deceptively calm — birds still singing, an idyllic surface that may already be an illusion or a distant echo. The tension between inner collapse and outward normalcy shapes the musical landscape. Though rooted in a specific moment in Israel, the piece also reflects a broader, growing instability in many parts of the world.
Quicksand stands as a musical response to the feeling of being pulled downward while still searching for a force that might lift upward.
For the Performers
Level: For professional contemporary‑music ensembles or advanced conservatory groups experienced with modern chamber writing and emotionally charged, politically grounded repertoire.
Programming: Ideal for concerts exploring music and politics, societal fracture, psychological landscapes, or works responding directly to real‑world events. Also fits Pierrot‑ensemble programs seeking repertoire with strong narrative and metaphorical depth.
Style: Unstable textures, sudden shifts between agitation and deceptive calm, gestures that feel pulled off balance, and a constant tension between downward drag and upward resistance.
Program Notes
The political events in Israel, beginning in early '23, where an unprecedented ultra-right government has initiated attempts to dismantle democracy for the sake of "Money, Power & Respect," have plunged this young country into a severe existential crisis, unlike any it has faced externally before. This crisis erodes from within what visionary people have built with their own hands, as they strive to redeem themselves from the ruins of their own past.
The ground there is shaking: politically, religiously, racially, socially, culturally — one feels that the ground is unstable, like quicksand. The music describes someone who was pushed into quicksand. After the first shock, comes a reflexive struggle with the muddy beast: deciphering unfamiliar laws of gravity, grasping at a branch, minimizing weight, moving cautiously... Yet the quicksand persists in its work — power runs out.
One can still hear and see the idyllic reality of the surrounding solid ground: birds are still singing, though perhaps these are already delusional tweets from some la-la-land? Or from another sphere? Still, there is hope to escape the quicksand, to win the battle. Some optimistic force pulls upward, while the quicksand pulls downward. A present reality confined to a small spot on the globe.
Quicksand is dedicated to David Hoose and Frank Epstein. It was commissioned by Collage New Music's 50th Anniversary Commissioning Fund, generously supported by donations from Nick Anagnostis, Paul and Katie Buttonwieser, David Oswald, and John Carrey.
L.N. August 2023
UPDATE February 2025:
World politics has become a global quicksand. Right-wing governments, oligarch-controlled nations, tax wars, trade wars, and xenophobic-driven election results... The divide between people is being highlighted and embraced, rather than unity. Nations led by leaders with the wrong motivations are being pulled deeper into the quicksand.
Each individual must do all they can to spread light and dispel darkness.