Cauda Pavonis

for 10 Musicians

Commissioned by the National Orchestral Institute + Festival

2020

You are waking up rom a procedure
which you did not survive.

The walls of the chamber are crystal,
of myriad colors which have no names.

Your skin is gone,
replaced by the sweet scent
of fermentation.

In the past few years I’ve developed a fascination with alchemy, a centuries-old tradition that has much more to do with spiritual transformation and hidden knowledge than it does with any literal transmutation done in a laboratory. Particularly fascinating is the alchemical stage of Putrefactio in which materials must die and decay in order to be spiritually reborn. I gravitate toward the idea that there is beauty and necessity in death and decay, and in the idea of needing to “put to death” parts of the self which are impure and must be transformed.

Cauda Pavonis (Tail of the Peacock) is the alchemical stage that represents the end of putrefaction and the beginning of fermentation, in which an array of iridescent colors appear out of the darkness in the imaginary laboratory flask. This symbol of rebirth after death is also connected to the liminal state between sleeping and waking, and the “eyes” of the peacock’s tail represent spiritual sight and visions.

The Creation of Cauda Pavonis was supported by The National Orchestral Institute + Festival.