Making, Unbecoming (2026)

for orchestra (10min)

Instrumentation:
2.2.2.2 - 4.2.3.1 - timp.perc(1) - strings

Perhaps more so now than ever before, humanity is able not only to adapt to its surroundings, but also to adapt the environment itself to suit its desires and needs. As a Singaporean, this power has become most apparent to me in the activity of land reclamation. Since her independence, Singapore has increased her land area by over 25%, filling substantial swathes of the sea with imported sand to accommodate her burgeoning infrastructure needs. Singapore’s glitzy waterfront promenade and award-winning airport are just some examples of key infrastructure built on reclaimed land. But the word "reclaimed" connotes an act of recovering, taking back something that was lost. But from whom are we "taking" the land back? Who bears the cost of this heady terraforming? What things, entities, communities are we driving into nonexistence as we "make" ourselves new surfaces to live on?

Apart from the often-devastating impacts on marine ecosystems and indigenous communities, land reclamation is deeply entrenched in economic asymmetries, as the poorer countries where sand is mined also have to bear the consequences of the concomitant soil erosion. The outsize power that we currently wield on this planet is what I reflect on in my piece, which seeks to sonically explore the interconnectedness of creation, or "making", with loss.

In the work, musical material is constantly being made and unmade, a disjunctive process that sometimes has traumatic consequences. The piece seeks, then, to highlight how acts of creation embody both promise and precarity, in that hope that we may be inspired to develop a more mindful way of seeing the world.

Making, Unbecoming will be premiered by Sinfonieorchester TonArt Heidelberg on 12 July 2026 in Heidelberg.

— Tan Tiag Yi

Please contact me for a perusal copy of the score.