Antinomy in Stillness(2025) for soprano, piano, and fixed media
PROGRAM NOTE:
Antinomy in Stillness explores the quiet tensions that arise when seemingly opposing forces coexist—pulse and memory, breath and silence, visibility and erasure. The term antinomy, borrowed from philosophy, refers to two truths in contradiction—neither fully canceling the other, both equally real. This piece inhabits that paradox.
Written for soprano, piano, and fixed media, the work weaves together text in both English and Korean, not as translations, but as twin expressions—external and internal, audible and submerged. The recorded Korean voice acts as the soprano’s inner double, an echoing shadow that lingers just beneath the surface, reflecting what cannot be spoken aloud.
The soprano’s live voice moves fluidly between speech-like Sprechstimme, flowing lyricism, and resonances that expand her tone into shadow and echo. Piano and fixed media entwine with her voice, amplifying and reshaping it, until the boundary between live and recorded sound begins to blur. Together they oscillate between warmth and rupture, evoking the fragile clarity and subtle violence that coexist in silence.
Rather than resolve its contradictions, Antinomy in Stillness breathes through them.
COMPOSER’S NOTE:
This piece emerged from a quiet reckoning—with contradictions I could not resolve, only breathe through. Rooted in stillness, memory, and tension, it gave me a space to listen inward and let what had been silenced remain alive. Beneath its currents live the echoes of my family and myself, shaped by experiences that leave traces of fragility and lingering unrest, yet carrying quiet hints of the resilience and strength we are learning to hold.
--Nahyun Kim, 2025
DURATION: ca. 5’ 50’’
PERFORMANCE
Premiere: October 3, 2025 — Oulunsalo Hall, Oulu, Finland
Occasion: October of New Music Festival 2025 (Uuden Musiikin Lokakuu), Oulu, Finland
(Festival dates: September 29 – October 5, 2025)
Performers:
Voice: Meeri Pulakka
Piano: Helga Karen
Technology specialist: Tapio Lappalainen
Link to video: https://youtu.be/r12fad_sf4Y?si=yw90T3TJs5l0AeFf
Antinomy in Stillness
for soprano, piano, and fixed media with Korean inner voice
Text & Translation by Nahyun Kim
Text Translation
I.
I speak
in silence. 나는 고요 속에서 말한다.
A breath held
against the wind. 바람을 거슬러 멈춘 숨.
The shadow and the flame— 그림자와 불꽃—
both claim the truth. 모두 진실이라 하네.
이름 없이 불어온 숨결, A nameless breath drifted through;
불꽃도 그림자도 진실은 아니었네. neither flame nor shadow was ever truth.
II.
Stillness bruises softly. 고요는 살며시 멍든다.
Light folds inwards. 빛은 안으로 스미고,
What stays disappears 머무는 것은 사라지며,
What breaks becomes 부서진 것은 다시 피어난다.
more whole.
부서진 꽃잎이 가장 깊이 피어난다. The broken petal blooms the deepest.
고요 속엔 울림이 숨어 있다. Within stillness, an echo hides.
III.
Two mirrors,
neither honest. 거울과 거울, 진실은 없다.
A voice without origin. 뿌리 없는 목소리
An echo without end. 끝없는 메아리.
I vanish
where sound begins. 소리의 시작에서 나는 사라진다.
끝을 모르는 울림 속에, In endless resonance,
나는, 한 번도 존재한 적 없었지. I was never truly here.
나는, 조용히 사라져간다. I fade away, quietly.
IV.
The wind remembers
what I cannot name. 바람은 내가 부르지 못한 이름을 기억한다.
It bends
but does not yield— 휘어지되 꺾이지 않는,
a shape carved 비어 있음이 빚어낸 형상.
from absence.
비어 있는 자리에 남은 온기, Warmth lingers in the empty space;
휘어진 길에도 꺾이지 않는 뜻. on a bent path, an unbroken will remains.
V.
Between pulse and memory— 맥박과 기억 사이,—
a flicker. 흐릿한 불꽃 하나.
A contradiction, 숨을 쉬는 모순.
still breathing.
한 점의 떨림, A single tremor,
기억과 맥박 사이에 숨 쉬는 틈. a breath between memory and pulse.
