Bluets is a multi-media piece by composer Luis Escareño based on the book of the same name by Maggie Nelson. The piece was written for the guitar and percussion duo The Living Earth Show (Travis Andrews and Andrew Meyerson).
The publisher describes the book as, "a lyrical, philosophical and often explicit exploration of personal suffering and the limitations of vision and love as refracted through the color blue." The book is organized as a series of numbered vignettes from 1 to 240.
The piece itself condenses pieces of the story into a monologue. The vignettes unfold via a processed pre-recorded narrator and text. When performed live the performers play along a fixed media track (a combination of the narrator and processed sounds) and a video (a series of images and text) that is projected onto a screen or wall. The piece is divided into 6 movements that serve as musical vignettes.
The audio was recorded live on March 30th at the Center for New Music in San Francisco, CA.
Music Performed by The Living Earth Show
Narrated by Sarah James
Text used with Permission of Maggie Nelson (Author) and Wave Books (Publisher).
A warm thanks to Maggie Nelson, Wave Books, Heidi Broadhead, Andrew Meyerson, Travis Andrews, Sarah James, Christian Mesa, Dan Becker, Roxana Waterman, Danny Clay, and Matthew Siegel.
