Every scar—whether physical, emotional, geological, environmental, or cultural—is the end of a three-stage journey. When the body is wounded, it responds with a series of biological processes. Yet, when the healing is complete, it is not returned to its original state. No matter the cause, the resulting scar represents a third state, a “new normal” which allows the body to continue while carrying with it the memory of the past wound.
Scar Tissue for six voices and piano trio takes the listener from unity through disruption to healing. Michael Redhill’s concise and evocative poetry unfolds in two parallel processes. Its nine movements are a mirrored mathematical pattern of lines and syllables, while Redhill’s own words are increasingly interwoven with lines from other poets, artfully blending emotion and science to reflect the universality and interconnectedness of this journey. The music has a similar trajectory, beginning with the entire ensemble moving together (“This is who I am, this body”), then gradually separating into various combinations as growth (“Change is the nursery of music, joy, life and eternity”) leads to disturbance, wound, and a central movement of chaos (“A breach opens. In becomes out”). The debris begins to clear in a moment of fragmentary beauty for voices alone (“How we all swiftly, swiftly unwrap our lives”). A “lost arpeggio” and “singing mouths” announce the biological processes of recovery, summoning relicts of musics past. An unlikely lullaby (“Phosphatidylinostol is… like a music that plays under everything”) leads to the final movement of recombination which embraces the “new normal” with a dancing celebration of life (“Eros comes nowhere near this bliss”).
We all carry scars, for in life we have all been wounded in some way. Scar Tissue evokes that process through words and music, celebrating the body and its capacity to heal.
