The Creative Wire
Notes on Scores: airborne extended at Cohen-Davison Family Theatre
Sept. 29, 2025 | by Patrick Flannery
Edited by Lara Pellegrinelli
The Austrian contemporary music ensemble airborne extended presents a concert of premieres by Peabody graduate student composers—Michael Balsamo, Victor de la Cruz Zurita, Patrick Flannery, Ahmed Karam, Sarah Parker, Daniel Weitz, and Christiaan Willemse—in the Cohen-Davison Family Theatre on Wednesday, October 8, at 7:30 pm. The performance is part of the ensemble’s first American tour. Known for its adventurous instrumentation—a quartet of flute, recorders, harp, and harpsichord, expanded with electronics—airborne extended invited Peabody composers to explore the ensemble’s unusual sonic palette in Zoom workshops this summer. The composers have been working closely with the musicians, developing new pieces that will receive their premieres next week. Among the works featured is Patrick Flannery’s doubly hollow and sepulchral, introduced in detail below.
doubly hollow and sepulchral, written for the ensemble airborne extended, is rooted in the experiences of gravely ill men and women who sought to regain their health in central Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave during the 1840s.
In 1839, Dr. John Croghan purchased the cave—the largest in the world at over 52,000 acres, now Mammoth Cave National Park—with the intention of constructing a hospital within its dark interior. During the War of 1812, the site had been mined by enslaved laborers for saltpeter, a key ingredient in gunpowder. By the 1830s, it had become a tourist attraction that drew such visitors as Emperor Dom Pedro of Brazil and Grand Duke Alexis of Russia. Croghan, a Louisville physician, believed the air in the vast network of tunnels and chambers possessed curative properties that could bring relief from tuberculosis.
Known then as consumption, the disease would reach epidemic proportions in the 19th century, infecting an estimated 70 to 90 percent of the U.S. population. Croghan hypothesized that the cave’s constant 54-degree temperature eased breathing and reduced chest pain. He began by constructing huts—some stone, others wood with canvas roofs—in the limestone rooms along a passage named Audubon Avenue.
“We hope that other physicians who may labor under affections of the lungs, and do not reside at inconvenient distances, will be induced to try its effects,” wrote Dr. Daniel Drake in the Western Journal of Medicine and Surgery in 1843. “Patients not of the profession need not hesitate to go thither on account of its involving a separation from their physicians, as Dr. Croghan spends most of his time there, and is well qualified to give them advice, although not now in the practice of his profession.”
The huts provided only sleeping quarters, with stoves to offer some warmth. They had no plumbing. Food was prepared in central areas, possibly by enslaved attendants. Residents gathered for weekly Episcopal religious services to keep up their spirits. At first, they reported relief from symptoms and renewed energy. But, as more people arrived, the air became polluted by smoke, a byproduct of the basic activities of living, worsening the already bleak conditions and intensifying the residents’ suffering.
doubly hollow and sepulchral does not recreate the soundscape of life inside Mammoth Cave, but instead attempts to convey the emotional state of those who lived there. The title is taken from the account of poet and travel writer Bayard Taylor, who had lost his first wife to tuberculosis: “I can conceive of one man being benefitted by a residence in the cave, but the idea of a company of lank, cadaverous invalids wandering about in the awful gloom and silence, broken only by their hollow coughs—doubly hollow and sepulchral there—is terrible.”
The piece, composed for airborne extended’s core instrumentation of flute, recorder/Paetzold (bass recorder), harp, and harpsichord, features eerie melodies paired with breathy textures created spontaneously by the musicians. Sounds shift from whispered air to winding combinations of pitch and noise, conveying both trepidation and hope. A series of duos evokes cries of wind through textured puffs of air or sliding melodic lines across registers. The harp and harpsichord often pair in passages of manipulated string noise and percussive effects, extending their roles beyond conventional sound.
As an ensemble, airborne extended excels in contemporary performance practice; their willingness to experiment offers the potential for entirely new sonic worlds distinct from traditional repertoire. Their comfort with free improvisation makes them the natural interpreters of this work.
doubly hollow and sepulchral contains moments of resonance that reflect the interconnected lives of those who once lived in the cave, despite the total darkness that surrounded them. It also serves as a call to recognize the enduring importance of public health.
Over time, some Mammoth residents left for home, while others who stayed slowly succumbed to the disease. None survived. The hospital was never built. Croghan eventually conceded that nothing he could offer would cure tuberculosis, and the cave was denounced as a site of healing.
Today, tuberculosis remains the leading cause of death from infectious disease worldwide. Roughly 10 million people fall ill each year, with the largest numbers of cases in countries including Bangladesh, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, and the Philippines. It is still a public health crisis.
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Patrick Flannery
Composition
MM ‘26
Patrick Flannery is a second-year Master’s student in composition at the Peabody Institute of JHU. Their music explores extremes without hesitation, diving into the darkest trenches of sound or soaring in incandescent atmospheres, always harnessing performers’ most transcendent features. Fascinated with unique expression and storytelling, Flannery’s music embraces community and continually expresses queerness.