Kari Novilla

Tuesday activity: adding every reverb effect possible on the moldau for fun and then it slowly descends into chaos??

J Holzen and I wrote a piece for the 2025/2026 Civic Fellows x International Contemporary Ensemble as part of our Chamber Concert at Ephiphany Center for the Arts.

UNIT/ED is inspired by the disparity of the United States as an idea and the United States as a lived reality. Drawing on harmonic material and motifs from, “My Country ‘tis of Thee” and “The Star-Spangled Banner”, this piece explores the ideals embedded in the American mythology and the fractures that occur in our supposed united nation. Flugelhorn and electric guitar reference the roots of American music in jazz and rock and the utopian nature that music can create. This piece is ultimately about the tension of naming the gap between the ideal and the realistic, and the choice to believe that unity is still possible through collective effort.

Throughout the piece, you will hear the fellows speak:
“What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something.”
- Howard Zinn

“We cannot think of uniting with others, until after we have first united among ourselves.”
- Malcom X

As an artist, I chose to use my platform to name these injustices happening to our neighbors, our friends, our people. I refuse to stay silent on our government failing us. We have the capacity to enact change.

I urge you all -
to do something.

Full recording can be found on my YouTube.