The Fire In 'Saltwater Lung'

When discussing what it takes to make successful, interesting art, some recurring themes tend to include grit, vision, technical excellence, and seemingly as an afterthought, passion. This month’s edition of Art Grove Newsletter features a reflection on the premiere of a new piece for orchestra by New York composer and punk performer, JL Marlor (she/they) entitled Saltwater Lung.

With JL’s consistent focus on collectivism, the queer experience, and creating works that actively deride patriarchy, it is no surprise that Saltwater Lung is nothing short of an act of passionate rebellion. They began writing the piece in spring of 2022 only to lose it all with the theft of their laptop that following summer. While finding it crushing to lose so much work, JL shared that it also felt liberating to restart the project after feeling bogged down by details in the original iteration. And so the drafting process restarted, in earnest, in the Fall 2022. 

As JL managed a multi-faceted artistic practice with full time graduate school and full time work, they began to face writer’s block. After consulting with their composition teacher, David T. Little, JL took after the advice he gave, turning to TV and film to respark their creativity. Saltwater Lung derives a lot of its inspiration from JL’s childhood on the rocky coast of Massachusetts, “I knew I wanted to write a piece about the ocean…I grew up on the edge of boulders and rocks, just very jagged edges,” so films like Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse and Lure, a Polish horror-musical became backdrops for JL’s compositional process. After adding a trio of treble voices, JL received feedback responding to the addition of that textural element as an addition of treacherous mythical sirens to the piece. While this was not their initial intention, JL leaned into it, choosing to allow the sirens to connect with cultural knowledge the audience already has and allowing that interaction to further reflect what JL refers to as their “disgusting melting pot of my anger with the patriarchy.”