Blessed Unrest

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique… You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.” (Martha Graham to Agnes DeMille)

James writes: “Blessed unrest was written in response to a commission from NZTrio requesting a short ‘attention-grabbing’ piece to open a concert; a ‘high-impact, dynamic and edgy’ work that would start ‘with all guns blazing’. It took a long time until I found something that I thought satisfied this demand, because I wanted to create a sense of pent-up energy and its release in bursts rather than write an obviously motoric pulse-basedpiece. While struggling to find a solution I came across the Martha Graham quote that gave the piece its title.”

Commissioned by NZTrio, with funding from Creative New Zealand.