dreams of an ear of stone - for chamber orchestra (2222—2200—timp+2—strings). Commissioned and premiered by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in July 2026 conducted by Brad Lubman.
For an archival recording please contact Justin via email. Excerpt of recording forthcoming online.
An “ear of stone” is a colloquial name given to a lichen often known as rock tripe, oak leaf lichen, or Umbilicaria esculenta. In her book, Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer writes about the symbiotic nature between rock tripe, its surrounding plants, fungi, wild animals, and humans and the way the lichens have helped build and support life over millennia. Drawing on the “ear” metaphor, Kimmerer writes of the lichen:
“In this almost silent place I imagine them listening. To the wind, to a hermit thrush, to thunder. To our wildly growing hunger. Ear of stone, will you hear our anguish when we understand what we have done? The harsh postglacial world in which you began may well become our own unless we listen to the wisdom carried in the mutualistic marriage of your bodies. Redemption lives in knowing that you might also hear our hymns of joy when we too marry ourselves to the earth.”
In dreams of an ear of stone, I imagine the worlds that the rock tripe has heard, the growth that comes from its reciprocity, and the precipice that we now look out upon. Through passages of a multitude of energies and temporalities, from lyrical elegiac passages, delicate shimmering suspended moments, to a driving and explorative animated section. In all of the materials in this piece, there is a shared virtuosity throughout the ensemble, as textures are built collectively and colored holistically. In this sense, dreams of an ear of stone tries to capture both the mutualistic nature of the lichen and what it might have heard or will be hearing in the future.