Omphalos (1996/2020)
violin solo
duration: ca. 5’
SMMP No. 110
Premiere performance
Mandeville Recital Hall, University of California, San Diego, February 1996. David Ryther, violin.
Program Notes
in Greek myth, the center of the universe was marked by a stone, the omphalos, which was also the source of divination for the Delphic oracle. Zeus set two eagles on opposite ends of the universe and had them fly towards each other at the same speed. The point where they met determined where he placed the stone. In Joyce’s Ulysses, the character Buck Mulligan invokes the term ‘omphalos,’ declaring a ‘new paganism.’
My piece is a thorough recomposition of a work from 1996. Although the materials are all derived from the earlier piece, they are radically reformulated here and animated by a new dramatic trajectory.
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