Anchorites

Based on texts by Tao Lin, Julian of Norwich, and John Berryman

First Performance

Kayleigh Sprouse (soprano), Kaylee Parker (mezzo-soprano), Cameron Falby (tenor), T.J. Callahan (bass)

17 January 2025, The Voxel Theater

Baltimore, MD

Program Note

Tao Lin wakes up to the clattering of birds that surround his modest home on the Big Island of Hawaii. He prepares food for his three cats and himself and leaves out scraps for the wild pigs. He fills the day with writing, editing, posting online, ordering esoteric books and reading the ones that arrive in the mail. He researches spiritual phenomena, near-death experiences, conspiracy theories, autism, and autoimmune diseases. Tao Lin famously “left society” in 2020 and dedicated himself to reversing his autism and healing the afflictions of modern society.

An “anchorite” is a type of hermit who secludes themselves in a single place for religious reasons. The most well-known, Julian of Norwich, anchored herself to a brick cell in St. Julian’s Church in the 14th century. Her descriptions of her visions and messages of God’s love are the oldest surviving writing of a woman in the English language.

Both Tao Lin and Julian of Norwich focus on sickness. Removed from society, both attempt to heal the world through deeply personal investigations of their own illness. This imparts both a vulnerability and an urgency to their work.

When I read John Berryman’s Dream Song No. 29 printed in full in the epigraph of Catherine Lacey’s novel, I felt the same vulnerability and the same urgency in its language. The protagonist of the Dream Songs, Henry, is described by Berryman only as having “suffered an irreversible loss.” Anchored as they are each to their own time, Tao Lin and Julian of Norwich console Henry, as he struggles to come to terms with his own pain.

The pieces employ a simple musical language and occupy a modest space. The songs are named for their authors, rather than the works from which they derive, as a gesture of reverence for each author’s dedication to the task of writing itself. These works, grappling with loss and virtue, convey an intimate understanding of the human condition and the delicate balance of suffering and resilience.