The Hand-Prints of Sorcerers —1987, revised 1992

The Hand-Prints of Sorcerers was composed during a summer residency at the MacDowell Colony in 1987. Michael Morgan conducted the world premiere with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago in Symphony Hall, Chicago.

Program Note

The Hand-Prints of Sorcerers was composed during a summer residency at the MacDowell Colony in 1987, and is dedicated to fellow composer Jeffery Cotton, with whom I have traded ghost stories.  While writing the piece, I was deeply absorbed in reading M. Scott Peck’s disturbing yet fascinating study of human evil, THE PEOPLE OF THE LIE.  (What better book to read while isolated in a cabin in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere?!)  Shocked and moved by Peck’s vivid accounts of demonic possession and exorcism, I set out to write music that reflected these encounters of spiritual warfare.  The title of the piece is drawn from the following excerpt from Jorge Teillier’s poem, The Exorcisms.

I no longer recognize my house.

Into it falls the light of ruined stars.

My friends keep watch before the mirror,

hoping the stranger shows up there

announced by the longest shadows of the year.

At dawn, barn owls nest in the fig trees.

In the glowing coals appear the hand-prints of sorcerers.

I awaken, holding in my hands herbs and earth

from a place I never was.

Reviews

…well-written and well-played.

Robert C. Marsh, The Chicago Sun-Times, November 5, 1991