i carry your heart (2022)

i carry your heart was written for Dan Shao (flute) and Mantawoman (yangqin) as part of the ‘Tangram Voices’ series in 2022. The concert explored themes of masculinity between China and the West, interspersing music with poetry and performance art pieces.

Based on a single line of text from e e cummings’ poem, i carry your heart alternates between moments of kitschy maximalism and sentimental folksong. The text appears in fragment several times, each time slightly extended before finally revealing itself in full.

Something I find really touching about cummings’ poem is the way it combines formal experimentation with an earnest, first-person voice - i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart) - this jarring mix of avant-gardism with emotional sincerity, expression that refuses to hide behind irony or ‘meta’ humour. While writing this piece I imagined a process of something cold and machine-like gradually giving way to warmth and tenderness, older forms of masculinity remoulding into new ones.

I CARRY YOUR HEART was commissioned by Tangram as part of Tangram Voices #6: ‘LAOGANMAN’. The piece was premiered at San Mei Gallery, London in May 2022.