In 2015, after having completed about a dozen solo works in this collection, I began contemplating how these distinctive characters might interact with one another in a group setting. While considering a variety of structured and fixed ways that these musical materials might be reconstituted in a chamber setting, I determined that a more modular and open-form approach would yield the most interesting and unpredictable possibilities. The result was Canetti-menagerie, a semi-improvisational work for five to eight performers, based on this collection of solo character studies. In this context, the performers improvise in various duo, trio, and quintet combinations, developing musical fragments from their respective solo studies, which are used as raw material for a variety of musical conversations—not unlike the interaction of distinct personalities at a social gathering. A related work, Conversations, explores these relationships in a setting for two to four players.

Whereas the solo works in this collection considers the psychological aspects of the individual characters portrayed in Canetti’s Earwitness, Canetti-menagerie is a sociological exploration of these characters’ interactions with one another, in the spirit of Crowds and Power. Together, these writings—and the works they inspired—explore the foibles of human nature individually, as well as the dynamics of human behavior collectively.

Since its initial conception as a freestanding work, Canetti-menagerie has developed into an evening-long program accompanied by several of the solo works, with readings from Canetti’s Earwitness and Crowds and Power as well as projected images of these characters created by artists Jessica Leza and Michael Kvium. The modularity of this project allows a great deal of flexibility in instrumentation and, from a practical standpoint, requires minimal production time.