The Mangle of Practice (2014)

The Mangle of Practice by George Lewis borrows its title from a work of scientific history and philosophy by Andrew Pickering, to whom this piece is dedicated, and who imagines many constraints on human agency as being real-time interactions between human endeavour and non-human forces rather than as fixed limitations. This 12-minute work for violin and piano explores this idea through a series of spectacular musical gestures, including unpredictable extremes of rhythm, range and performance technique.