If there is a dead thing still rotting (2021)

for flute and recited text alone (10 min.)

If there is a dead thing still rotting takes its title from a line of poet Muriel Leung’s BONE CONFETTI, a collection of work intertwined with the relationships between death and mourning. Leung writes, “There are two types of survivors at the end of the world—lovers and ghosts who die, are revived, and die again. Each death and resurrection carves its way into the landscape of a wrecked city where skies are flocked by molten birds and trees grow in shades of ash.”

This reaction to Leung’s work incorporates a poem entitled “The Lost Years” from the subsection “In Abstensia-Land: A Funeral.” The performer recites the text of the work throughout the piece, stretching to bridge and emphasize the interdependency of text, sound, and meaning.

Who is hung there by the crystal and chandelier. I’m still here, says the hollow madam tilting forward.

You must understand. In this closet is an ocean in a canopy bed. Nothing is what it seems.

Tread carefully the velvet noise of the house’s guillotine.

If there is a dead thing still rotting, stomp it out before it ghosts.

If there is a dead thing still rotting was written for flutist Denis Savelyev as part of a collaboration between the Peabody Institute’s Flute and Composition Departments, and was premiered on November 29, 2021.

Philip Snyder, flute and recited text