I have become increasingly interested in the ways that early humans structured their worlds and how these ancient beliefs, rituals and stories continue to shape the ways we see the world today . When I started thinking about this piece for the Bardin-Niskala Duo, I wanted to connect the music with some of the practices found in my native V enezuela. There are indeed many indigenous populations in the country . Some of them continue to perform their rituals in traditional ways, while others lead a “ modern ” lifestyle where their shamanistic beliefs play a comparatively less important role. I focused my research on the traditions of the Y anomami (a group of approximately , indigenous people who live in some – villages in the Amazon rainforest on the border between V enezuela and Brazil) and the Y e ’Kwana ( a Cariban-speaking tropical rain-forest tribe who live in the Caura River and Orinoco River regions of V enezuela, where they live alongside their former enemies, the Sanumá (a Yanomami subgroup)). As I kept learning more about their rituals and compared them with the traditions from other shamanic cultures, I noticed an important similarity: many cultures around the world represent their cosmologies in stratified designs that are connected through a central structure. In some places, this central image is a tree, which connects heaven, earth, and the underworld, which is the case in the Yanomami and the Ye ’Kwana, as well as the Norse Yggdrasill. In the th century , the term Axis mundi emerged in the field of comparative mythology . It closely relates to the mythological concept of the omphalos (navel) of the world or cosmos. 

Discovering that many of the world’ s ancient cultures have this unifying symbol at the center of their cosmology was a great inspiration. As a V enezuelan who has lived most of his life outside of his native country , my sense of identity is fractured, unanchored. Therefore,I have always looked for the ways in which I can feel connected to others in deeper ways that transcend traditional national and cultural boundaries. This imagery of the world tree represents to me, not just the central symbol of some of the cultures from my home country , but also a powerful image for humanity as a whole: at our cores, we are all people craving to connect to our ancestors, and to something bigger than ourselves. 

The music in this piece is structured like a kind of shamanic ritual, to mirror how the axis mundi is commonly the location of these important ceremonies. Beginning with low , slow and guttural whispers, the piece gradually finds a melodic impulse through vocally-inflected lines in the cello. The ritual gathers momentum and intensity , the music grows and grows. The melodies give way to pulsations and drum-like accents. The final whirlwind is a kind of brutal ecstatic dance, full of energy and the raw power of the human spirit at its most terrifying and awe-inspiring.