Antinomy in Stillness explores the quiet tensions that arise when seemingly opposing forces coexist—pulse and memory, breath and silence, visibility and erasure. The term antinomy, borrowed from philosophy, refers to two truths in contradiction—neither fully canceling the other, both equally real. This piece inhabits that paradox.

Written for soprano, piano, and fixed media, the work weaves together text in both English and Korean, not as translations, but as twin expressions—external and internal, audible and submerged. The recorded Korean voice acts as the soprano’s inner double, an echoing shadow that lingers just beneath the surface, reflecting what cannot be spoken aloud.

The soprano’s live voice moves fluidly between speech-like Sprechstimme, flowing lyricism, and resonances that expand her tone into shadow and echo. Piano and fixed media entwine with her voice, amplifying and reshaping it, until the boundary between live and recorded sound begins to blur. Together they oscillate between warmth and rupture, evoking the fragile clarity and subtle violence that coexist in silence.

Rather than resolve its contradictions, Antinomy in Stillness breathes through them.

​COMPOSER’S NOTE:

This piece emerged from a quiet reckoning—with contradictions I could not resolve, only breathe through. Rooted in stillness, memory, and tension, it gave me a space to listen inward and let what had been silenced remain alive. Beneath its currents live the echoes of my family and myself, shaped by experiences that leave traces of fragility and lingering unrest, yet carrying quiet hints of the resilience and strength we are learning to hold.

— Nahyun Kim, 2025