Zany, Cute, Interesting

My piece is titled “Zany, Cute, Interesting.” It’s inspired by the literary theorist Sianne Ngai, whose book Our Aesthetic Categories explores what she calls “weak aesthetics” – our ambivalent or antithetical responses to contemporary culture and commodities: playfulness and desperation, tenderness and aggression, stimulation and boredom. This composition stages a violin performance that might support a similar range of reactions, offering an ambivalence around the notion of virtuosity. – Vijay Iyer