Swan

2015, 10:45 min.
Yvette Janine Jackson
Swan is by American electroacoustic composer Yvette Janine Jackson. Jackson's radio opera work borrows from the immersive sound of the golden age of radio drama and is meant to be listened to in the dark to animate the theater of the mind. Yvette Janine Jackson is also interested in an African American aesthetic of electroacoustic music, influenced by Afro-futurism. Swan takes place in three scenes: “the cargo hold of a tall ship transporting Africans to the Americas; a disorienting journey that traverses time, and the arrival into the weightlessness of outer space” (Jackson dissertation, page 44-46). Swan was first broadcast on Wave Farm's WGXC on February 10, 2018 as part of an evening broadcast devoted to Jackson's radio opera work.