Fanfare for the Multiverse (2026)
(for wind septet and interactive electronics)

Composer Note

This work is part of my ongoing “recombinant” series, which transforms instrumental sounds to create multiple, digitally created sonic personalities that follow diverse yet intersecting spatial trajectories.

This is the first work in the series to directly address African American sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois’s influential concept of double consciousness, in which Black Americans are seen as “gifted with second-sight in this American world—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world.” I have long felt that Du Bois’s observation could be extended to address the notion of parallel universes, and my “fanfare” motif is meant to announce a coming and hopeful new reality where, as copies of copies appear as decorations of decorations, I ask listeners to consider what the multiverse might sound like.

— George Lewis