Sir

duration - 5.5 minutes. electric guitar quartet (2024)

“SIR” is heavily inspired by my interactions with traditional masculine imagery and representations of “maleness” in popular media. Often, masculinity is a daunting force (it does control essentially everything in our society), and can seem frightening and impossible to counter.

However, masculinity, like all gender, is a performance. It’s a farce put on by many to appear tough and impenetrable, like fortresses held up against blustering winds of change. In this performance there is fear, of course, but also a level of humor and camp to the sheer dedication with which so many execute it. Ultimately, like all performances, it begins to fall apart as differing ideals and interpretations of maleness come into the picture, and (hopefully) finally surrenders to the winds.

SIR was premiered at New York University by Dither in 2024.