Kate Soper in the New York Times

by Ted Gordon on Dec. 11, 2014, 10 a.m.

The New York Times' "In Performance" series is a regular feature of their Culture section's video archive. Recently they've chosen to feature composer Kate Soper performing a section of her own work, "Only the Words Themselves Mean What They Say," along with flutist Erin Lesser. A three-part piece based on texts by Lydia Davis, it explores tensions and serendipities between written text, spoken text, the human voice, and the voice as played through instruments. Soper writes, "Lydia Davis' words suggested an unhinged virtuosity and idiosyncratic, multi-layered musical reading that took me from screwball comedy to paired musical gymnastics: the flute becomes a kind of Iron Man suit for the voice, amplifying it to new planes of expressivity, intensity, and insanity as the two players struggle, with a single addled brain, to navigate the treacherous labyrinth of simple logic."

Click below to see the video at the New York Times.