Song for Sendai (2011) was composed for Wendy Richman. This song is a personal response to the mythic scale of the devastation of Sendai in the spring of 2011. Sendai was where my family and I lived for three years during my childhood. In contemplating the devastation, I thought of Voltaire's writings on the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, when the devastation shifted not only the geographic landscape, but also the philosophical: the earthquake transformed man's understanding of himself in regards to nature, God, and the universe. Traumatic events also have the effect of altering our sense of time. The first part of this song is a Voltairean contemplation set to a baroque form, a passacaglia, an ostinato that represents a kind of psychological stasis. As my contemplation of Sendai returns me to my memories of when I was three, such that what I am unpacking psychologically is much more emotional, than intellectual, I felt the most therapeutic thing to do was to compose by singing what I felt. The second part of this song is just what came out of that exercise. The destruction of Sendai altered my sense of place in the world. Although, I had yet to return there since childhood, it is now a place in time to which I can never go back.

LYRICS:
Lisbon
I have dreamed and have seen the future
the landscape of my youth mythic'ly wiped out
by water
and fire
the loop of technology only amplifies the wrath
the wrath
a loop like a passacaglia
which keeps me stuck in the present
Voltaire and Lisbon always are present always
you said

only thoughts I carry in my head
some call them memories like something nice you said
but now I'd rather have a sled
something to hold and remind me of where I've been
another wave I'd be lost
and though I've never gone back
it's nice to know that a home is still a fact
my favorite genius still alive
you said
so like Hachiko waiting by a Matsu no ki
I will stay here staring at the sea
until the tide
brings you back
to me

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