one day these chains will break away

one day these chains will break away (2021)

duo for percussion (~7 minutes)

Program Note:

In November, around the 2020 election, I was talking to a close friend about feeling stuck: mentally, emotionally, and musically. I had been working on a lot of new music, school work, etc., and life seemed like a perpetual cycle of busyness without an end in sight. Our conversation eventually turned to sending poems to one another and we finally had the great idea to use one of them for my next piece. Poetry has been a subtle aspect to how I think about writing music, but I find it comforting, even more so now. one day these chains will break away is in 3 unique sections and utilizes galvanized steel chains as an instrument to musically express the cemented and chained down emotions from the poem and those chains in our own lives.

Invisible Chains

invisible chains hold me captive

the chains of my world and peers

the chains i tied myself up with

the chains i can't seem to bear

emancipation is what i seek

it is what i desire

i know i have the key to be free but yet i still aspire

let me be you vile mind

let me be

one day these chains will break away i will no longer desire

for i will be as free as an eagle

free to be the true me

but till then i will continue to aspire aspire to be free

aspire to be me

-Chantel Belfon

July 2010

Link to Poem: https://hellopoetry.com/poem/48652/invisible-chains/