Bodily Failure/Wreckage; Situations vs. Theater; Chaos; Bad Phone Reception (Equivocation); Vulnerability—Intimacy; Ecological Crisis; Dystopian Humor; Nonsense as Spiritual Renewal; Anti-Irony

Artist Statement:

All of my works, regardless of instrumentation or media, are, in essence, works for voice and percussion. It is through these mediums that the act of music-making cannot be divorced from the human instigator. By no means do I reject the corporeal gifts those other instruments bestow, but rather reimagine them so that the experiencer/doer—as they are so inextricably linked—cannot be easily forgotten. The being behind the sound and the movement is responsible for making these aesthetic sensations palpable. For this reason, I prefer a working scenario that allows the individual performer to seep into the music itself in a conscious manner as bodily agents of sound. The mannerisms, preferences, and discomforts of the performer for whom I am composing take center stage in both the development and performance of the piece. In the developmental phase, I become a sponge. 

When I compose works for those whom I do not have the opportunity to meet, I remember that notions of ownership are spurious and keep a watchful eye for how the piece becomes imbued with the performer’s personality. This excites me. In order to encourage these personal renderings, my notation allows a certain degree of freedom. The more variable the interpretation, the more “unsayable and unpredictable” (Attali) the artistic outcome. These outcomes may be counterbalanced by my own aesthetic decrees, however I find serendipity in those moments that I myself could never have “composed.” 

For me, Composing has increasingly become an act of bodily knowing. With scant initial compositional planning beyond my sponge-phase, my works follow their own predilections, which may, upon first glance (at least to me), seem to emerge from outside myself. However, upon deeper examination, my body has known its musical desires far sooner than my conscious mind. It is for this reason that I do not impose predetermined systems and structures onto my compositions. Not only do these systems risk sucking the life out of my works (as they have in the past), but often lead to a process that I personally find unsympathetic. Through every phase of the piece’s working, I try to remain acutely aware of the material’s implications, and allow my mind to respond to my body’s initiatives, so that the two may engage in a web-like exchange. As I compose, I come to understand what it is I am composing. And as a listener, the work may evade logic until it is (re)considered retroactively. 

As a result of these processes, my works often hover in a state of tension between my bodily knowing and the performers’ physical and emotional presence.

Bio:

Younge is currently serving as the Technical Director and Lecturer at Dartmouth College. Her works have been featured in the 2020 National Sawdust New Works Commission, the Long Beach Opera Songbook, the International Summer Course for New Music Darmstadt, Resonant Bodies Festival, Gaudeamus Muziekweek, The 16th International Young Composers Meeting, the Frequency Festival, Ear Taxi, and many other festivals. She has worked with many ensembles including JACK Quartet, TAK Ensemble, ASKO|Schönberg Ensemble, TILT Brass, KLANG, Ereprijs Orkestra, Fonema Consort, AndPlay, Chartreuse, Gyre Ensemble, Ekmeles Vocal Ensemble, Mocrep, and others throughout Europe and the USA. She has been awarded the Stipend Prize at the International Summer Course for New Music Darmstadt, the Kanter/Mivos Prize, the Barcelona Festival Mixtur Commission award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Charles Ives award, a Fromm Commission award, and was nominated for the Gaudeamus award.