Concerto #5 (Mary, Mary Magdalene, Lady of Guadalupe, Lydia, Phoebe,Tabitha)

This is the fourth version of a choral piece originally titled Haunted.
Took about 24 hours. I was never happy with the vocals, not the meaning so much but my abilities. The idea was a Mahleresque double symphony focused on the children of war, of what can we do because we are not doing much in the rescue of kidnapped, maimed or killed young women in Africa and across the middle east into Pakistan and India. But I was uncomfortable calling it a symphony because there is a programmatic atmosphere to it such that it felt more like the last moments of a haunted dream, seems forever, 80 minutes or so and I eliminated the vocals because they kept sounding processed rather than the measures of a Southern voice beaten and rejuvinated, then beaten up again. So, here we have it. A feeling of failing to protect young women in 1/3rd of the world. We measure the progress and enlightenment of a nation based on equality to the point that it is not even a subject. So much of the world is fighting to move forward against all opposition, while others are completely unevolved or are slipping backwards to the detriment of woman and the general good of the land. I know equality goes against Old Testament, Koran, Confucianism/Taoism, and does rest in my faith in humanity. If we say someone is just kinda equal, sort of equal, not equal, then we begin the landslide of being property, to the living hell of Gog and Magog (Revelations version of warring states, not Genesis or Ezekial where identity is person and place) whereas it exists in much of the middle East and Africa where slavery is either legal or wears the mask of indentured servitude. And for me, this is how music speaks. We remain God’s children, servants and emissaries, but we also seek equality for all in a democratic republic or social democracy. If we allow ourselves to descriminate against woman, to hold her down, then where does it stop? Biblically we have Mary Mother of Jesus Lord, Mary Magdalene, Lydia, Tabitha and Phoebe who each have necessary roles of moving the faith forward. Deacons. No Mother, No Son. Virgin of Guadalupe because she is our Lady of the Western Hemisphere. In Korea when it was Buddhist they had the first female ruler, the Great Queen Seonduk. Then Confucianism came in a few hundred years later and pushed woman back down, but the oikos (homelife in Greek) belongs to woman. There is much to argue here, so I simply present it as a musical work, a concerto to woman. She’s only had the vote for a hundred years now in America. Who are we, where are we going? I hope to being better human beings. But I worry. There will There will be plenty who find this adn my thoughts all wrong, violently wrong, and all I can say is turn the page.