Facility - Full Score (PDF Edition)

fa·cil·i·ty [fəˈsɪləti]

1. A place, amenity, or piece of equipment provided for a particular purpose.

2. An ability to do or learn something well and easily; a natural aptitude.

 Knowing that "Facility" would be geared towards collegiate piano studios, I took inspiration from the B Section of Chopin’s third Scherzo. The piano begins with cascading, wave-like figures over a grid of rhythmic brushing envelopes and low buzzing harp notes. I asked myself what a gateway piece to the Chopin might sound like, and what resulted expands a player’s facility to perform the scherzo's range-spanning arpeggios and chorale-like passages.

 I began writing in September 2023, as I was organizing a letter campaign for friend and activist Wayland X Coleman, who was serving life without parole in prison. I mailed letters on behalf of 150 people to the department of correction, advocating for his mental health and stable housing conditions at the facility.

 The first sound I recorded for the piece was a series of rhythmic loops, made by brushing Wayland's letters together. I took these containers in their own right, so much more than words, and combined them with other sounds derived from different types of vessels, mechanical whirring, a neglected harp, and the piece's themes played on an out-of-tune upright piano. I saw these things as representative of all of us, our brokenness, and our untapped power in those last few months of 2023.

 I thought a great deal about capacity building as so many people in my life stepped up for Wayland, retaliating against the totalizing violence of mass incarceration for the first time. And as 2023 continued, millions around the world continued to stand against the occupation in Palestine. To know Palestine is to see how every issue of oppression intersects, and I really believe there is no better capacity-building task––I saw friends and acquaintances fundamentally radicalized as they came to do so. How has our collective facility to act against oppression been altered, for the better? 

After the initial piano figures resolve, and a low, profound reckoning takes place in the middle section, the piano and electronics interact in ways that are almost orchestral in nature, gradually becoming more in sync with one another. Every musical element makes room for the rest, allowing for quicker and coordinated movement. Facility for technical skill, direct action, and, personally, electronic world-building, work in-tandem to bring this piece into the world.

Literal hours after finishing the piece on January 30, solitary confinement was effectively banned at the state level in New York. Weeks prior, a Massachusetts ruling banned life without parole sentences for those convicted under 20 years of age, and Wayland was finally granted a hearing after 27 years inside. In fact, the facility where he was placed announced that it would fully close down by the summer of 2024.