Program Note
While living in Delhi during the summer and fall of 2010, I became intrigued by the many "Appeals for
Identification" published in the local newspapers. These small advertisements included a photo and
description of an unidentified body found at some place in the city of 26 million. I collected and
numbered these ads and began visiting the places where the bodies had been found, making brief
audio-visual recordings, with the intention of somehow incorporating them into a future musical-theatrical
project.
Body 22 was found between platforms four and five of New Delhi's Nizamuddin railway station. He was
approximately 75 - 80 years old with a round face, wheatish complexion and lanky build.
I visited this platform at night. It was loud and busy, many were waiting for trains while others seemed
to be living there. Unlike Delhi's other railway stations, Nizamuddin station lacks security barriers making
its platforms effectively open to the public. With its constant noise and bustle, distorted and disorienting
announcements and general unpleasantness, it’s an awful place, as many of these places are.
Study for Body 22 is a part of 'Appeal for Identification,' a large-scale music-theater work-in-progress that
gives voice to Delhi's nameless dead through translating the ambient sounds of the locations where their bodies
were found.
Premiere:
Parhelion Trio
29 June 2012
St. Marks Episcoal Church
Jackson Heights, New York
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