Performed by: Carrie Kocsis, Joel Midden, Dan Mohr, Molly Roth
recorded by; Sam Scranton
(2013) The Magicicada is the official name for all species of cicada with long periodic life cycles. Brood XIII is the specific group of cicadas that appear in Illinois every 17 years. My work attempts to break down distinctions between the raw animality of the cicada and the veiled animality of the human. It also deals with our attempts to escape our finitude via the creation of enduring masterpieces.
Featuring my pre-recorded voice, this work attempts to describe the beauty of the natural world but fails miserably. The singers, percussion, and electronics all desperately work to decorate and conceal my plainspoken incoherencies. The middle section features extremely ordinary words likely uttered at least once by most people born in the United States after 1945 that also happen to have been immortalized in song by Iggy Stooge. And the final section rewrites cicada history linking them with the author’s own ego.
