Zaum Box is a collection of short compositions for one or more solo percussionists, who orate Russian Futurist poetry while performing on a variety of instruments and devices, such as smartphone. The composition is a work-in-progress by Christopher Adler, commissioned by percussionists Katelyn King and Alexv Rolfe for the speak/strike project. Zaum, or ‘trans-rational’ language, was developed by poet Alexei Kruchenykh in 1913, who asserted that ordinary language could not express the thoughts of the modern mind in a state of inspiration. The experimental poetry of Kruchenykh and others rapidly progressed from the creative deconstruction of grammar, to the invention of words, to the invention of entirely new language of sound beyond rational meaning, and finally to the complete deconstruction of phonemes into graphical constructions, all in the span of just a few years. Each movement of Zaum Box sets a single poem for solo performer. Speech, percussive technique, instrument selection, and the visual appearance of the score are all subject to creative disruption in the spirit of zaum. Performers design trajectories of movement by choosing the movements, their order, many of the instruments, and their physical placement.

Commissioned and premiered by Katelyn King and Alexv Rolfe