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Kevin Ernste (1978)

Numina (2010)

duration: 13:00

I often look to extra-musical materials as my point of departure for composing, and this piece is no different.  My piece is called “Numina”, a concept derived from Roman myth, a cue I took from your group name “Janus” (the Roman diety).  Janus is one of the few Roman dieties that has no Greek counterpart.  He is the first god mentioned in ceremony, the god of beginnings and endings as well as of transitions and thresholds (and therefore doorways, gates, etc).  All wonderful musical fodder....

The term “Numina” literally means “noddings”, as in divine decrees.  Later when Roman kings were considered gods on earth, the term became more generalized as simply “presence” or as Wikipedia puts it “the inherent vitality present in beings, places, and objects.”  This latter interpretation interested me compositionally.  I often look to the “inherent” sounds of instruments, the sounds made by their physicality rather than by technique: the harp as a sympathetic resonator, for example, or natural harmonics on the viola, etc.

From this basic sound idea and with formal ideas taken from the concept of beginnings/endings/transitions from janus, I composed a set of musical episodes, each focused on a rather limited set of pitches and sounds.

~ Kevin Ernste