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Beyond Noend with Errante features a new work, Silent Tears, by F. Gerard Errante and John Toomey that was commissioned for this recording. The following notes about the composition were written by F. Gerard Errante for the CD booklet. SILENT TEARS Dedicated to the memory of Phil Egert Silent Tears (1999) is a work for clarinet, effects processor, and prerecorded electronics that was inspired by an event in the life of the late photographer and humanitarian, Phil Egert. This composition uses various extended clarinet techniques, primarily multiple tones being performed simultaneously. In addition, John Toomey composed the middle electronic portion of the work, which provides the basis for a clarinet improvisation. Phil’s son told me the following story, which he heard for the first time at his father’s funeral in 1998. Phil made frequent trips to Ethiopia during the 1980’s famines, and it was on one of these trips that he traveled to a hospital that had requested food and medical supplies. Upon walking into the building, he found himself in the middle of a large, dimly lit empty room littered with bodies lying in silence on the concrete floor. The only sound that broke the room’s deathly silence was the buzzing of flies. Thinking that he was at a morgue, Phil asked the local aid worker if he had been given the wrong address. The aid worker replied that "no, this was not a morgue, but a hospital for mothers with newborn babies." Upon looking closer as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Phil realized that the bodies were actually women lying on the floor, too weak to move. Under the arm of each of the mothers was a newborn baby. He asked the aid worker if they were alive and she said "yes," but still confused, he asked, "why were there no sounds, why weren't the babies crying." At which time the aid worker replied, "the babies have no strength to cry. They are dying." Upon hearing this, Phil said, "I will cry for the babies." He then stood in the middle of the room and cried as loudly as he could until he collapsed from weakness so that God could hear the silent tears of all the dying babies that had no one to cry for them. —F. Gerard Errante |
© 2000 Drimala Records |
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