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Assemble

from Behind the Curtain by The Witches

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about

Composed by Anna Meadors

"My mother loves telling this story, and it always brings me joy to hear it. In the early 90s, when I was a few years old, she decided to pursue an Associate's degree at the local community college. When deciding what to study, she picked computer programming, because, in her words, she “didn't know anything about computers.” It was completely out of her comfort zone, and that's why she chose it. So, she shows up to class the first day, one of the three or four women in the class of twenty, and at the end of the class, one of the men told my mom he was pretty good with computers and offered his help if she ever needed it, friendly, but with slight condescension. She politely said thanks, I'll let you know if I need help. The teacher was excellent but the textbook was completely unhelpful, and the teacher encouraged everyone to ask questions; my mom took this to heart and asked countless questions, wanting to thoroughly learn the material without caring about what others thought. Every time they had an exam, the teacher would write the scores on the board with the number of people who got that score. After the first exam, on the board goes 100 – 1, 95 – 3, and so on, and when the exams are returned, it was my mother who got the only 100. Next exam, same thing, she got it again. It keeps going this way, and towards the end of the class, the man who offered his help asked for her help with studying for the final exam.

Okay, this all sounds like bragging about my mom, which it is, in part, but, this inspires me for many reasons. She worked incredibly hard to learn about something she had no prior experience with. She told me one of the main reasons she went back to school when I was really young was to show me the importance of education. She has always loved learning, and to this day, continues to try to learn one new thing every day (she has a reminder taped to the fridge).

I wanted to write a piece that honors her, and, inspired by her love of learning, thought the best way was to also do something out of my comfort zone, which also happened to be computer programming. I had been wanting to learn ChucK, a text-based music computer language developed by Princeton student Ge Wang, and decided to use a very basic melody generator to get the pitch material of the piece. I selected two of the “melodies” and those are the only pitches used throughout the piece. With pitches “chosen” for me already (often the most difficult part of my composition process), I was able to focus more on timbre and textures, and write without a strict pulse, another move pushing me out of my comfort zone.

While working on this piece, a highly qualified woman lost the presidential election to a dangerously incompetent man. This piece became about more than just about my mother. It became about all the women who have to work insanely hard and still do not get the credit they deserve, or the position they deserve, or the pay they deserve. Assemble is a nod to one of the computer languages my mom learned during that course, Assembly, but, it also became a directive – we must assemble to overcome those who want our rights removed and our work ignored.

-Anna Meadors

for more info about the composer, visit www.annameadors.com

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from Behind the Curtain, released October 19, 2017

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The Witches Baltimore, Maryland

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