Program note for Hysteria (2000) 

for trombone and electronics

Hysteria was created for Abbie Conant, in response to her "Wired Goddess" project. The title refers to the original meaning of hysteria, as in "too much womb" or "too many wombs". It is a meditation on the feminine, her powers of regeneration, her connections to ancient worship of goddess and fertility rites, and in a dark sense, her current position in modern patriarchal culture.

The text consists of five phrases taken from poet John Campion's Tongue Stones:

matter/mater/meter/muthos
bowl of regeneration, quickener of wombs
follow the mysteries of your feet
let dark ages be crucibles
wounds like flowers opening

The most important line is the first, and it acts as a kind of thread running through most of the piece. These four words intersect with each other and the music: "matter" as the musical material, "mater" as the regenerative feminine, "meter" as literally menses, symbolized by a low continuous pulse, and "muthos", which means myth. Musical gestures which evoke the body are used throughout; a low heartbeat sound recurs every five seconds, and breath sounds, derived from low trombone pedals, are used extensively.

I recorded Abbie and myself speaking these phrases at the Center for New Music and Audio Technology (CNMAT) at UC Berkeley. I also sampled Abbie's playing extensively, particularly her low pedal and flutter tongued sounds. I processed these sounds using software such as Peak and AudioSculpt (IRCAM), and mixed the recording with Protools. I would like to thank Matt Wright for the use of some of his samples of Abbie, CNMAT for the use of its facilities and its generous technical support, and in particular Edmund Campion for his advice and help creating this piece.

---Cindy Cox



Cindy Cox, Bio

Cindy Cox was born in Houston in 1961. Her teachers were Lili Kraus in piano, and Harvey Sollberger, Eugene O'Brien, John Eaton, and Donald Erb in composition. 

She has held Fellowships at the Tanglewood Music Center, the Aspen Music Festival, the MacDowell Colony, and the Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Italy. Awards and commissions have come from organizations such as the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fromm Foundation, ASCAP, and the International Competition for Women Composers. Recent performances include those by the Kronos Quartet, the National Symphony, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group. Recordings may be found on the Capstone and Mark labels. A new recording of her recent chamber works will be released in November on the CRI label. 

Cox holds a BM in piano performance from Texas Christian University, a MM and DMA from Indiana University in composition, and is presently an Associate Professor at the University of California at Berkeley.