Composed by Erin C. Blake

Performed June 12th, 2023 at the Nief-Norf Summer Festival

Sandra G. Powell Recital Hall, Knoxville, TN

Something Lurking is a loose representation of Dark Forest Theory, a theory from the science fiction book The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin that attempts to explain why we as humans still have not heard from intelligent alien life, despite the probability that there is some other civilization out there. Dark Forest Theory takes “kill or be killed” to the extreme by describing different civilizations as armed hunters in a dark forest that must shoot every other lifeform they encounter, regardless of the actual threat. Even if the other being is a harmless, defenseless creature, the hunters cannot take the risk of leaving it alive. Something Lurking, set to text by Elizabeth Joffe, goes through the mind of one hunter grappling with this environment as they run, shoot, hide, and ultimately kill.

Evelyn Spencer, soprano

Pak Ho Lau (Albert), percussion

Ian T. Jones, percussion

Maddie Wallace, percussion

José Gurría-Cárdenas, conductor and coach