“Wandering Rocks” refers to the 10th chapter in James Joyce’s landmark novel, Ulysses. The chapter takes the form of a set of very tiny and fragmented snippets of people’s lives from around the city of Dublin.
In this work, I have done something similar. I’ve engaged with a number of the concepts from the broader work of Ulysses as well as the local concept of the tenth chapter. In the same way Ulysses is a rough parallel to Homer’s The Odyssey, my work is a parallel to Holst’s The Planets, with each movement aligning with a celestial body (two of which are not featured in The Planets being VII. Earth, and I./V./IX. Polaris; The Northern Star).
Furthermore, similar to Joyce’s depiction of fictionalized individuals in Dublin, this work is meant to be a depiction of 7 people from my life:
A.V.A. – S.R. – I.G. – C.D. – K.S. – W.L. – J.C.
Each of these anonymized individuals have had a profound impact on my life. One such individual, Alexandria, was the inspiration for this work. Our long, winding, confusing, but ultimately endearing and necessary conversations inspired the first version of this piece for sextet back in 2019. Alexandria has had an especially profound impact on my life, and thus this work is dedicated to her.
Please watch the recording and look at the score below!
OLIVER DUBON 