August 22, 2024

Congratulations to the winner of the second annual Antigone Music Collective Call for Scores, Sean Quinn! His work will be featured during our 24-25 concert series. We are honored to present this duo in concert with others that have been written for us in the past year.

Additionally, you can learn more about Sean’s work by subscribing to our newsletter!

Here is the poem that was the inspiration for Sean Quinn’s winning work, trace the line to my centre:

Programme Note:

The stroke from bridge to board; an invitation. The air a tactile surrogate. Channels looping with interference, saturated; polluted with conscious stanzas, circulating. trace the lines to my centre (2024) takes its title from the following poem by queer Australian poet, stephen zavitsanos:

on me and watch my crack
spread faster than light and open up
my insides for display purposes (only)

trace the lines to my centre and take
pride in what you’ve done to me–
this work of art, my fractured glass,
your words of praise. put me up for

sale and promote my sides–
my angles, my curves,
how I’m a representation
of something great,
of many things even,
leave me up to interpretation,
letting be
consumed.

(stephen zavitsanos, drop a dumbbell, August 2023 – printed with permission)

The poem’s aspects of retention and tracing were of particular interest and drew out a language of interaction between the two players. An improvisatory atmosphere impinged with landings; two lines converge and diverge with a voyeuristic scintillation.