Phosphorus was written soon after the death of Cameron Haynes, the nephew of Hatzis' wife. After a year-long battle with cancer, Cameron passed away just after his 25th birthday. Throughout his life, Cameron suffered from Asperger's syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder, requiring extra attention and care from his family and those close to him. Living in a small town and being educated in the public school system, not equipped to deal with children with special needs, he was often the target of bullying. This, along with the behavioural side effects of his condition, made his way through life rather challenging. All this notwithstanding, he remained positive and optimistic and, in the end, his battle with cancer revealed a person of courage, poetic strength and, however hidden and unarticulated, an empathy for others atypical of his condition.
Mysterious yet playful, Phosphorus opens with the marimbist playing a series of inquisitive phrases peppered with rolls, while the digital audio provides a steady crotchet pulse of marimba pitches beneath. After arriving at a long pause consisting of eerie electronic ambiance, we are eventually introduced to our MC, who informs us that "Today we are talking about the phosphorus." However, the voice and its underlying electronic beat quickly dissolve and the marimbist's phrases resume, with rolls now dominating more of the material, while vestiges of the MC's "phosphorus" chant periodically emerge from the backing track. The voice samples briefly return in solid form, heard alongside the marimba's wavelike contours. A semiquaver pulse of synthesizer pitches then takes over the accompaniment, the marimba dancing around this rhythmic foundation in animated lines. Our lesson on the phosphorus abruptly resumes, the marimbist instantly falling into unison with the melodic motif in our MC's underlying beat. The backing track then returns to motoric synthesized pulses, over which the live marimba dances, navigating a pulling back of tempo. Our MC interjects, his processed "phosphorus" chant and motivic hook now overwhelming the piece, while the marimba matches the excitement with upper-register chordal stabs that mutate into clusters. The marimbist is allowed a final, spacious monologue over pitch-shifting ambiance before a syncopated percussive groove draws us to the conclusion of our lesson.
My wife, percussionist Beverly Johnston, and I were very much affected by Cameron's passing. I dealt with my grief by examining my own feelings and understanding of human mortality by the best available means to me: music. Two musical characters engage in a virtual conversation with each other in this work. One, a quiet lament-like harmonic sequence for the marimba over descending minor thirds, the other is segments extracted from a DJ mix by Cameron called Phosphorus, which he had proudly sent to us a short time before he was diagnosed with cancer. These two musical themes - which in my mind gradually came to represent Bev and Cameron in this conversation - inhabit two different tempi: Bev's at 75bpm and Cameron's at 100bpm. They also are radically different musical expression: soft classical music that is close to mine and Bev's sound work, and on the other hand a heavily distorted, de-sentimentalised, but otherwise matter-of-fact report on the properties of the chemical element phosphorus.
Even though in his Phosphorus mix Cameron speaks in a detached manner about things devoid of any emotion, I felt that in some deeper way, perhaps unbeknownst even to him, he was talking not about phosphorus but himself. His evasion of being personal was consistent with his medical condition. However, I could not help but perceive a metaphor about his own difficult life in this text, particularly after his passing when I started using it to create this work. I chose to leave his text musically untreated, just like the documentary material, since I believe that it speaks powerfully and profoundly about the human condition in spite of the seemingly humorous and comical surface. The marimba is trying to come to terms with this material by attempting a metric modulation into Cameron's tempo (the two tempi have a three-to-four ratio relationship) and towards the end, as understanding grows, the marimba surrenders the original tempo and abdicates to that of the Phosphorus mix.
After completing this work, I realised that all three of my compositions for marimba and digital audio have a pre-recorded documentary aspect. Fertility Rites (PE101), references Inuit throat singers, while In the Fire of Conflict (PE108) references the rap pondering of a young man under severe socio-economic duress. Phosphorus continues this theme with the voice of a young man who at one point of his monologue states that "In Greek, phosphorus mean Light Bearer." Cameron Haynes has been this Light Bearer for a lot of people, including us, and this work is dedicated to his memory.
