MUSIC
THE BOOK OF NEVER (2017-2020)
Chorus (SSAATTBB)
31 min.
A choral cycle based on the Novgorod Codex — a book of Ukranian psalms from 999 A.D. overwritten hundreds of times with heretical sermons by an excommunicated Pagan missionary — built on echos of ancient hymn fragments, the first words of a now-forgotten language, a banished monk’s apocalyptic visions of a distant future, and scraps of text by contemporary writers in exile.
A choral cycle based on a banished monk’s apocalyptic visions of a distant future, and scraps of text by contemporary writers in exile...
ONCE A WHILE IN TIME (2023)
TENOR, PIANO
7 min.
A set of three songs drawn from letters by the American public to Jackeline Onassis Kennedy in response to the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963, combined with fragments of Willie Nelson's song "Ain't it Funny How Time Slips Away" which appeared on the Top 40's charts the week Kennedy was killed.
A set of three songs on letters from the American public to Jackie Kennedy after her husband's assassination...
AN ISLAND WE NEVER LEAVE (2019)
Flute
9 min.
An unrelenting barrage of virtuosity for solo live flute and three pre-recorded flutes, assembled using simple rudiments from folk traditions transcribed and fragmented from various well-known performances and recorded oral histories in Ireland, Japan, Norway, and Slovakia.
ECHOES OF ALWAYS (2018)
Fl, Hpd, Hrp, 2 Vln, 2 Vla, Vcl, Cb
9 min.
An orchestral entr’acte collaged from tiny moments of JS Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B Minor, various French Baroque opera overtures, and unmeasured harpsichord preludes by François Couperin, stitched together with scraps of Helgeson’s own previous music.
CALLS OF CLOSE AND AWAY (2017)
Fl, Ob, Cl, Bsn, Hrn
6 min.
The first in a set of pieces for woodwind quintet that collage fragments of 18th-century French hunting calls used by Louis XIII (a patron of the arts who enjoyed killing for sport), and bugle calls used for communication in American wars throughout the 20th-century.
A WAY FAR HOME (2016)
Chorus (SSAATTBB), Org
10 min.
A tapestry of choral images that freely arrange the 1,451 words from poet Kazim Ali's English translation of Marguerite Duras’ proto-screenplay L’amour, loosely based on her youth as a colonial settler in Saigon and the France she “returned” to for the first time just as the Nazis came to power across Europe, each ravaged by occupation.
SNOW REQUIEM (2015)
Sop, Vln, Str Orch, Hrp, 4 Perc, Chor
20 min.
An anti-cantata based on author David Laskin’s account of the Children’s Blizzard of 1888. Combines fragments of Norwegian folk song transcriptions from the tralling and Hardanger fiddle traditions, as well as sonifications of weather data fashioned into clouds of orchestral noise and wordless vocal chorales.
POEMS OF SHEER NOTHINGNESS (2013)
Sop, Fl, Cl, Vln, Vcl, Pno
38 min.
Five troubadour verses on the subject of songwriting in their original Occitan, carefully scattered among transcribed and fragmented audio recordings of Helgeson's work sessions while setting them, creating music that's a poetic record of its own making.
BRIEF REGARDS FOR SOMETIMES (2006)
2 Vln, Vla, Vcl
21 min.
Five pieces using fragmented transcriptions of early wax cylinders — a distorted recording of an unknown fiddle tune, marches played simultaneously in the distance, a quiet chorale sung outdoors by residents of an old folks home, an anonymous rendition of Ravel's String Quartet in F Minor, and a brief clock chime surrounded by noisy silence.
WRITING ON A MANUSCRIPT (OF JS BACH) (2003)
Vln, Vla, Vcl
7 min.
Fragments of imaginary realizations of JS Bach's manuscript facsimiles for his three-part keyboard invention in F minor, interpreted as a sequence of graphic scores, cut up into scraps, and then strung together in a series of disjointed moments.