I am so glad you are here right now reading this and listening to the wonderful sounds that Sequoia brings to life. My piece, Whether to Scream or Breathe, to be completely honest with you, was horrifying to write. I don’t want to focus on that, but I do want to give you some context for what you are hearing. Since December of 2020 I have been dealing with an extreme anxiety disorder that causes me to have horrific panic attacks, on a relatively frequent basis. Because of these experiences I have categorically felt like a dierent person and nding ways to cope has been, to say the least, an expedition. My being, my life, the moment I am in, all gets swallowed up by these attacks and the after eects on my body and my mind seem to bubble inside me for days or even weeks at a time. I do not want to be labeled by my anxiety experiences but I do nd them necessary to think through, feel out, and share as both a way for me to process what is happening and so others might understand me better. This piece is one way for me to do that.

My anxiety largely manifests in physical ways where I hyperxate on certain body functions and decide that there is something wrong with them. This usually spirals to a point where I feel like I have lost control over my body and I am convinced that I don’t feel like my “normal self”. The most common and agitating manifestation of my anxious spirals happens with my breathing. I, sometimes for hours, am convinced I cannot breathe properly and am so amped up that I cannot take normal breaths (let alone deep breaths which are the simplest and only step necessary to addressing this “problem”). I decided to explore this, and exploit my panicked breathing for this piece. Questions of how much to hone in on my anxiety, how much to share, and how much to exploit myself have been intensely complicated issues to sift through as I have written this piece. So much of me, of my loss, my pain, my despair, is wrapped up in these 20-minutes of music, but at the same time, the process of writing this has been one of growth, renewal, acceptance, and inquiry. So every miniscule decision that is in this score is related to this experience, but at the same time, it is a way to release this tension, this agony, that has lived in me. This piece is not a window into my anxiety experiences but it is a full on plunge into my mind and into my being. To really engage with this piece is to acknowledge my wrestling with these issues and to let that energy guide you.

As for the artwork from the MAG. The 5 pieces of art I have chosen have been my saviors, my instigators, and my teachers. I would, sometimes during a panic attack, turn to these pieces and let myself live with them. I remember in September of 2021, I was out on a walk by-myself and started to feel uneasy, lightheaded and nauseous. After my initial hypochondriacal thoughts of what major illness I had that day started to grab hold of me, I began to hyperventilate in the middle of the street. I scurried towards a bench in the nearby pocket park and wiped out my phone scrolling through my photos to nd Helen Frankenthaler’s Seer. I forced myself to get lost in this painting until all my thoughts, whether they were anxious or not, lived inside the world of this artwork, the world she created. These paintings shifted from being distractions to being destinations. And because of this I was able to write music between the cracks in the canvas, as the greens and oranges shifted between light and dark, and as I could try and smell the owers as they drooped from the ngers of that child in Hilda Altschule’s Child with Flowers. Prior to this shift for me, I was quite honestly unable to write any music for this project. Nothing would come out. These pieces of art, entangled with my bouts of anxious terror, concocted an arena for me to pull and rip and let my own musicality seep out of me. Some aspects of some of these paintings physically made their way into the score of the piece because they are so inseparable from my journey with this material and the emotions and reactions I was having. I feel like I have become friends with the ve female artists I chose to work with on this project. It was an honor to dive into their lives, their intentions and their creative endeavors as a way to collaborate with each of them on this musical experience.

This piece is ripe with sporadic panicking, transitions that are abrupt and jagged that confuse me, yet feel honest. While this piece can be consumed by panic there are also moments that display erce attempts to deal with this anxiety. My motto that I use while in distressing moments “I am O.K., Everything is O.K., I am healthy, and This will Pass”, surfaces, as well as many breathing techniques I do to calm myself down. There are moments of improvisation in this piece, primarily the moments of panic, of unknowing, as I felt like every single instance of an anxiety attack was an unconscious opportunity to use myself to deal with me. To scrape something o of me that I didn’t know was there and to let it help me. To give me more tools to know myself, and be a better human for others around me. I invite you, if these moments are uncomfortable, to live there for a bit, and try and reckon with why it might feel distressing. Without harming yourself, lean into that feeling and let it inuence your playing, your performing, your existence with this music.