Mockery Pursuit for Violin and Cello (2018)
Mockery Pursuit was initially inspired by Jorge Luis Borges’ story of the mythical “A Bao A Qu”: a creature which resides at the base of an enormous staircase, waiting for a traveler to begin an ascent. Initially shapeless and invisible, the A Bao A Qu follows behind the traveler and gradually becomes more colorful as the traveler ascends the staircase. If the traveler reaches the top of the tower, they are granted a view of the most beautiful landscape imaginable. In Borges’ story, the A Bao A Qu appears to be benign even when a traveler fails to reach the end of their journey. Thus, the concept for this piece was born from the question: “what happens to the traveler who fails to reach their destination?”
Where Borges’ story uses the A Bao A Qu to describe the journey to Nirvana, Mockery Pursuit seeks to explore the dangers of the obsessive pursuit of a singular goal.
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Track Info
Performed and premiered by Sara Bashore and Kathryn Carlson at the University of California, Santa Barbara Lotte Lehman Concert Hall, 2018.