We talk so much about spoken-word audio at SFF Audio that I thought I’d take a second to feature a musical work inspired by two works of fiction, one literary and one zombie.
From the composer’s post:
Two summers ago, before my sophomore year, I read two novels: one featuring a protagonist named “R,” the other entitled “Room.” R is a grown man trapped in apocalyptic America who can’t even remember his whole name. His outlook on the world crumbling around him is deeply profound, but almost from the perspective of an innocent child.
In the novel “Room,” John is a 5 year-old boy born and raised in a small garden shed, unable to leave, but ignorant of any other world apart from the one that has been created for him. When he escapes, he is suddenly surrounded by the world – and he doesn’t know what to think of it. My piece R(oom) is a compilation of these two conflicting ideas: a man who sees the world through the eyes of a child, and a child who sees the world of man for the first time.
Inspired by Room (by Emma Donaghue) and Warm Bodies (by Isaac Marion), composer Holt McCarley wrote R(oom). You can listen to it and some of his other works by going to his SoundCloud account. I saw it performed live last fall at Furman University, where the composer is a undergraduate student. It has been on my mind lately since the film version of Warm Bodies recently released in theaters.
Posted by Jenny Colvin