Day of Screaming

instrumentation: three bass clarinets
duration: 7 minutes
written in: 2024
written for: Shawn Copeland

You may have heard about Transgender Day of Remembrance, a somber yearly memorial for the shockingly large number of trans people murdered for who they are.  You may also also be familiar with the more cheerful Transgender Day of Visibility, an annual chance to declare that no matter what happens, we are not going away.  But in 2015, a tumblr user called 37q proposed a third event:  Trans Day of Screaming.

The post simply reads: "trans day of screaming will be friday november 6 spread the word."  Later, another poster by the name of willsparking fleshed out the idea, adding:  "the screaming starts whenever u want.  group screaming is great but individual screaming is fine too.  if you think you might be trans you too can scream because cisnormativity probably still informs your questioning"

It was a joke, but it was one that resonated emotionally for many trans people — a perfect expression of what it's like to live in a world that wants to erase you.  So when Shawn Copeland approached me about writing a piece for a project themed around queer and trans activism, I decided to turn the joke into music.  Day of Screaming asks its performers to get in the right frame of mind by spending fifteen seconds thinking about an injustice they've experienced, before immediately launching into a protracted shriek on the highest notes they can play, held until they run out of breath.  This visceral howl sets the stage for a piece that explores many different varieties of scream.  

It's not all caterwaul all the time, though.  There are also moments of calm, as well as a (hopefully) cathartic climax that weaves fragments from songs by 14 contemporary trans and/or nonbinary artists — SOPHIE, Dorian Electra, Janelle Monáe, Macintosh Plus and more — into a dense, joyous collage.