A Conjuring for Deborah Lipp

The title and inspiration for "Conjuring" comes from an episode of the Slate podcast "One Year" featuring Deborah Lipp. As a high school student, Deborah refused to stand for the pledge of allegiance. Her action kicked off a firestorm of debate around freedom of speech, especially as that freedom does or does not apply to students. I have been thinking quite a bit about the precarity of our rights since the fall of Roe two years ago. Deborah was fierce about defending her own rights and eventually changed the law. What will it take for us to do the same? Deborah Lipp is now an author and teacher of Wicca. I started to think about the similarites between magic and music - music also involves a process of envisioning, of creating sound by imagining what the sound could be and manifesting  it into being. With this piece, I wanted to go one step further and ask if the act of manifesting music can also manifest new way of being in the world. "Conjuring" is structured as a conjuring spell inviting the Hindu devis Durga, Saraswati and Kaushiki to restore balance, wisdom, and light. Each of the musical motives in the piece is a cipher spelling out the name of the devi, the words light and wisdom, and the text "I invoke you." The piece moves into harmonic worlds built around the associated raga for each devi and rhythmic motives inspired by the Hindustani talas Rupak, Mat, and Jhap.