i think i can move on now. (May 2022) by Caleb Walker

"i think i can move on now." is an introspective work written in the summer of 2022 drawing on a personal experience of identity, expression, and self-acceptance. Much of this work reflects on my experience as a gay, nonbinary person and the overall sentiment of the queer community. The piece began as an exploration of timbre and quickly became symbolic for navigation of self and the journey to inner contentment.

"i think i can move on now." is an intimately exploratory piece reflecting overcoming self-hatred and self- detriment. Often when we talk about these issues it is deemed as “taboo” or to be dealt with yourself and not shared. However, I offer this piece as a means to converse about this innately sensitive and human emotion. To be so deep into self-hate is to be buried alive, and I seek to expose this in i think i can move on now. to serve as a reminder not only to myself but to my audience that moving forward is inevitable and the culmination of the grieving process. Of course, in this instance, I am reflecting on the grief I’ve experienced from realizing the gravitas of the self-detriment I was inflicting upon myself throughout, essentially, my whole life. This is not an easy process and is not easily learned. I hope that by sharing this, we can begin the conversation on this innately human emotion.

In addition to exploring and expressing this uniquely human feeling, I seek to also employ experimental techniques to best convey this maximally strong emotion. The culmination of this is the use of breath. All performers, at some point, are instructed on specific breathing and sounds to produce via the breath. In addition to this, I have incorporated a short poem in this piece, originally written to describe a previous work, Light Interacting with Water (Spring 2022), which I wish to use to express a strong pull to nature as a means to process this complex feeling.

An orange streak lines the horizon As if the water,
Filled with static,
Radiates,
Pulsates,
Light and sound.
Light abstracts the horizon
As the color melts into the water. Everything fades
And dies
Into darkness.
This is the Call.

I offer this poem as a grounding source in it all. A means of introspection and insight that allows us to move forward.
i think i can move on now. begins with largely unpitched material in a dense, a-rhythmic texture. This texture is riddled with vocalizations in the breath. This movement lands at periods of introspection with the reading of the poem coupled with glass-like bowed percussion instruments. It all culminates in an ascent into crystalline structures symbolizing light gleaning onto rich earth.

Written for the 2022 Walden School Composers Forum to be performed by Isabel Lepanto Gleicher of the International Contemporary Ensemble and Kyle Flens of Ensemble Dal Niente.