A work in six parts for contrabassoon + electronics, timpani + syncussion, and activated snare drum. The genesis of The Shunned Path began with a simple question: if one orchestral instrument could be freed from its traditional context and presented through the bespoke electronic array developed for Thomas Stone’s solo performances — projected at full scale through a massive sound system — which would it be? The answer was immediate: timpani.
Returning to formative influences such as the Jerusalem-era intensity of Sleep, viewed through the restraint of Arvo Pärt’s chamber works and combined with the stark experimental techno of Pan Sonic and Emptyset, The Shunned Path builds on themes introduced in 2022’s An Act Of Surrender. It continues Stone’s exploration of surrender — questioning whether it is active or passive, imposed or chosen. Is one consumed by a higher force, or can one exist consciously within it?
Conceived as a duet, The Shunned Path is an exploration into coercion - where does free will stop? Are the things we’re led into not doing more significant than those we are encouraged to do? Manifesting these ideas literally with the tuned percussion and woodwind exchanging phrases throughout, supporting and impeding a progression, the two players working towards a common goal - but not necessarily for mutual benefit.
Written in the context of the ever growing presence of machine learning in daily life and a widening sense of powerlessness in the face of encroaching authoritarianism, the sound world is more exposed and direct than in Stone’s previous works. Acoustic instruments are augmented with electronics without obscuring their physical presence. As with much of Stone’s output, the language is austere: chromatic motifs set against cyclical rhythms; dissonance resolving gradually toward consonance; long tones and pulses generating both stillness and momentum. The boundary between acoustic and electronic is deliberately blurred, producing a sound world grounded in tradition and the experimental. Despite its darkness, The Shunned Path concludes enigmatically rather than in despair.
