Obligations

music by Paul Fowler
text by Layli Long Soldier
film by Brett Snodgrass

Obligations is our final pandemic-time film, appropriate to the moment in that Layli Long Soldier’s poem, on which is it based, is mired in grief, and yet, in the structure of the poem lies possibility, an alternate journey, and healing. The poem invites the reader to read and reread and reread again. It always begins and ends with the same line, yet every reading can follow a new path and every one of those paths crosses "the river of grief." We are grateful to Layli for permission to sing these words. We chose this poem as a way of emerging back into the world we left in March 2020; a world of issues that have not gone away, and in many cases, have become more dire. We’ve sung a lot about our country during the pandemic and we realize our democracy consists of millions of individual stories, many are stories of struggle, each a reason to sing.

Obligations was recorded at home by the artists of The Crossing in isolation. In-house sound designer Paul Vazquez worked with composer Paul Fowler to overlay over 300 sound files to bring to life the composer’s chamber-like, transparent score for 24 individual voices. The film completes a trilogy of pandemic-time collaborations with filmmaker Brett Snodgrass. The animated collection launched one year ago with David Lang’s "protect yourself from infection," followed by Michael Gordon’s "One Day I Saw," from Anonymous Man. 

Brett’s comments on the film:

It’s about healing. The primary metaphor is above and below, heaven and earth, struggle and transcendence, shown in the black horizon, the X shape or mirrored triangles (symbols for earth/heaven and domicile) and the unfurling braided hair, which spreads to the other suffering forms. The entire piece is inhabited by the gold color of morning: new start, new day. It begins with a reference to a creation story and ends in a blooming prairie pasque flower, the first flower of spring. At its start and close is an elemental figure whose story is yet to be told.

Obligations is the fourth work written for The Crossing by composer Paul Fowler. Previous commissions include "Breath," appearing on the ensemble’s first solo album, It is Time; "Echoes," for the treble-voice album I want to live; and "First Pink," a memorial to co-founder Jeff Dinsmore.

The new work is dedicated to filmmaker Brett Snodgrass's father and sound designer Paul Vazquez's mother; both passed away during the making of Obligations.

The Team for Obligations

music by Paul Fowler
based on the poem "Obligations 2" by Layli Long Soldier (used by kind permission of the author)
film by Brett Snodgrass
sound design by Paul Vazquez, with Paul Fowler
conceived and conducted by Donald Nally
with Kevin Vondrak and Paul Vazquez

with special thanks to Carol Westfall

The Crossing
Katy Avery
Nathaniel Barnett
Jessica Beebe
Kelly Ann Bixby
Karen Blanchard
Steven Bradshaw
Colin Dill
Micah Dingler
Ryan Fleming
Joanna Gates
Dimitri German
Steven Hyder
Michael Jones
Anika Kildegaard
Heidi Kurtz
Maren Montalbano
Rebecca Myers
Becky Oehlers
James Reese
Kyle Sackett
Daniel Schwartz
Rebecca Siler
Daniel Spratlan
Elisa Sutherland
Donald Nally, conductor
Kevin Vondrak, assistant conductor
John Grecia, keyboards
Jonathan Bradley, executive director
Shannon McMahon, operations manager