Flutist, composer, and improviser Phoebe Bognár grapples with loss and remembrance in my memories hold the name of a fruit. The piece brings together many layers of sound—field recordings, spoken words and poetry, multiple lines of bass flute—to tell the story of three generations of women in Bognár’s family (her grandmother, her mother, and herself). Stemming from a poem written three years after the death of her grandmother (婆婆 or por por, Cantonese for maternal grandmother), who was a role model and mother figure for her, the piece begins with her first memory and unites a series of important childhood memories. The title is a play on words and sounds: growing up, she ate paw paw fruit for its heat reducing properties, according to Chinese food natures, and called her grandmother por por. For her, memory is tied to food and culture; in the title, she expresses these intertwining ideas of memory, culture, and food.
This is Bognár’s first collaboration with Metropolis Ensemble, after connecting with them through violinist and composer Darian Donovan Thomas. In writing and presenting this work, she isn’t moving past the painful feelings of loss, rather, she is finding ways to remember life beyond loss and to channel the emotions she feels into something more tangible—a way to celebrate her grandmother’s life and the ways it changed and shaped her own, and to explore the ways that culture and upbringing live on. — Vanessa Ague
Bognár’s moving poem can be heard within the intricate lines of music:
soil was never my first memory nor
the touch of skin to skin
yet the sensation of
cold ceramics under juvenile palms
is a sensation that
strikes me with salience
navigations of the sensory self
hunger directional
abject disorientation of
innocent impulse
gesture became memory
feeling became friend
sounds roused my attention notably
as hunger drew me to bountiful troves often
"欣欣"
endlessly endearing
my ears became attuned to
this affectionate inflection
in looking up
I saw the moon for the first time
a kind face that shone irrespective
of its stature ladened with
the labours of life
and gifted me sounds that
we would eventually sing together.
seeds do not grow from the ceramic
but she knows the earth
and so did I come to.
my memories hold the name of a fruit
in looking down I saw
the earth and an elderly papaya tree
rooted deep in the soil
her limbs had carried roots and borne sweetness
her leaves gestured for me to sing with her
in a language that had been sewn deep
in looking within
I see the seed that the moon illuminated inside me
the tree born of earth has
become earth once again
and so we will sing once again
she knows me
and so will I come to
Episode: 40Date: August 20, 2020Artist: Phoebe BognárInstrumentation: FluteWork: "My Memories Hold the Name of a Fruit"Composer: Phoebe BognárMore from House Music