New Work Published: Metanoia for Woodwind Quintet & Fixed-Media Electronics

Dear colleagues!

I am pleased to announce the publication of my new work Metanoia for woodwind quintet and fixed-media electronics by Gusthold Music Publisher.

For details and ordering, please visit the publisher's website: https://davisbrown7.wixsite.com/gustholdmusic. Please notice that the recorded media (for the electronic component) is included, absolutely free.

Description:

Attending North Carolina Dance Theatre’s (NCDT) 1991 performance of Afternoon of a Faun was entirely a friend’s idea. She knew the mythic spectacle, which took place in Fulton Chapel on the campus of The University of Mississippi, would have an enormous effect on me. The dancer in the role of the Faun had a wonderful costume, replete with two red lights for eyes, and moved with the non-human physicality insinuated by Debussy’s tone-poem. I was held in thrall by the idea of the faun as a symbol for the potential evolution of the human form and being. 29 years later, I began to conceive Metanoia, its form suddenly clear in my mind, from about the end of January 2020. I felt a burst of inspiration upon remembering NCDT’s modernization of Vaslav Nijinsky’s 1912 original. Remarkably enough, I had never before been moved to compose a piece as a response, as it were, to that choreographic experience of nearly three decades ago. Moreover, the three years between 2017 and 2020 had seen me go from arch-advocate of humanism to someone who sympathized with the endeavor to reconceive the human. I, therefore, knew that Metanoia had been evoked by the unexpected realization that the Debussyan Faun could be reinterpreted as a post-human manifestation of the individual through a radically different, caprine identity. I was in Millport, Alabama at the time. I desperately needed gainful employment and determined to secure a position in the only field in which I knew I could do so quickly – church music. I applied for a job with Music Ministry International (MMI), which provides faith-based support for the U.S.- Military community. Consequently, I was hired in February 2020 as Music Director for Protestant worship services at Ramstein Air Base in Kaiserslautern, Germany. I had told MMI CEO Dr. Bill Bailey how excited I was about the prospect of undertaking something as significant and life-changing as the Ramstein assignment promised to be, and he responded by referring to this transformative aspect of the opportunity as “metanoia.” I knew immediately that this term was significant for quite another reason, and made it the title of this piece.

ZANE GILLESPIE

After six years as Minister of Music at Mount Pleasant United Methodist Church (UMC) in Holly Springs, MS, I was recently called to continue to work to address public engagement in music participation as Director of Music Ministries at First UMC in Water Valley, MS. I am a Composer, Theorist, and member of both The College Music Society as well as The Poe Studies Association (PSA). I am also an active pianist and vocalist, specializing primarily in church music. My paper entitled ““Mesmeric Revelation”: Art as Hypnosis” has been published by the international, peer-reviewed journal Humanities. In addition, another paper of mine entitled “A Model of Triadic Post-Tonality for a Neoconservative Postmodern String Quartet by Sky Macklay” has been submitted to the peer-reviewed Music Theory journal Perspectives of New Music. At the end of February 2015, I served as Chair for the session entitled “Aesthetics and Philosophy” at The Fourth International PSA Conference in New York City. On June 21, 2014, my Quartet for Alto Saxophone and Strings, a commission from concert saxophonist Walter Hoehn, was performed as part of Concert V of the Eighth Annual Belvedere Chamber Music Festival held at Grace-St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Memphis, TN. Characteristically neo-romantic (in the original sense of the word), my music earned me the Nancy Van de Vate Award for Composition three times from the University of Mississippi Department of Music. A native of Pontotoc, MS, I hold degrees from the University of Mississippi (BM; MM), and the University of Memphis (DMA) where I was the 2011 recipient of the Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music's Smit Composition Award. I live in Memphis, TN.