3283: UMcertain

Piece based on the Statue of Liberty by Bev Boyd.
"It moved to me to think about emigration to the United States from the perspectives of two English emigrants and one native New Yorker, whose ancestors fled Europe at the turn of the 20th century.
"Each voice describes a different aspect of the immigrant experience and it got me thinking how hard it can be for societies, and individuals, to marry their wide ranging notions of liberty, opportunity and identity. To stay or go, to commit to a new world or not, seemed part of all the experiences in the voices you hear in the piece. '  So the word 'um' was what I wanted to highlight. I wanted the feeling of 'um' of hesitancy and uncertainty and conflictedness, to be heard. I felt it deserved recognition. I wanted to give it music.
"I noticed how these three Americans had all known conflicted feelings in the process of making sense of their own or their families' moves. Ambivalence seemed to be missing in the Emma Lazarus poem, which has the