The Sand Reckoner (2017)

Instrumentation: 6 solo voices (SSATBB) and celeste
Electronics: Yes
Duration: 20'
Text: by Archimedes, Blake, Wycliffe Bible
Commissioned by Jacob Greenberg for Ekmeles Vocal Ensemble and the Tanglewood Music Center.

NOTES:

By the time of Archimedes, the number of grains of sand by the sea and the number of stars in the sky were already common examples of the limits of human knowledge and understanding. In “The Sand Reckoner”, considered the first scientific paper, Archimedes boldly creates an exponential numbering system and uses the scientific method in order hypothesize and to prove the size of the universe. In doing so, he confronts innumerability, infinity and finitude, and, in doing so, challenges articles of faith, that which is knowable and unknowable. My piece adapts this text, together with commentary from several sources on the material and metaphor of sand, from the Wycliffe Bible, from William Blake, and from counting rhymes, in a setting for six solo singers and celeste, with electronics.

PRESS

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