The Future

baritone voice and fixed media electronics

duration 15’00”

The Future (2022) is a song cycle for voice and electronics with text adapted from early 20th century writings predicting what life would be like in the 21st century. The predictions chosen for this cycle are ones that have largely turned out to be false, often to a comical or absurd degree.

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“Steel” is adapted from a 1911 interview with Thomas Edison in which he expresses his certitude that the 21st-century home will be filled “from floor to ceiling” with metal furnishings.

In “Coffee and Tea,” taken from an early 20th century interview, Nikola Tesla is convinced that these beverages will no longer be consumed in the next century.

“The Newspaper” sets text from a 1922 interview with former Boston Globe manager Charles H. Taylor Jr. He speaks optimistically about the future of the printed newspaper, which, he states, will certainly not be replaced by “the radiophone.”

“Advertising” adapts text from T. Baron Russell’s 1905 “A Hundred Years Hence: The Expectations of an Optimist,” in which he enthusiastically writes that advertising in the next century, influenced by the “growth of public intelligence,” will become more serious and dispense with “cheap attention-calling tricks.”

The Future was commissioned by baritone Nathan Krueger, who recorded most of the voice samples heard in the electronics, with the generous support of the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh Faculty Development Program.

Contact emartin1014@gmail.com for more information.