Commissioned by the Barlow Endowment, this work was the result of Stacy Garrop winning the 2018 Barlow Prize, and was premiered by Akropolis, Calefax, and the BYU reed quintet. This premiere took place on the Jewel Box Series at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago, IL on October 19th, 2018.
The work has 4 movements:
1. Inscriptions from the Book of the Dead (0:00)
2. Passage through the Netherworld (5:49)
3. The Hall of Judgement (11:47)
4. The Field of Reeds (15:04)
Stacy chose for her subject matter the Egyptian’s beliefs about the afterlife. The piece follows the soul into and through the afterlife, including the spells and enchantments contained in The Book of the Dead, the funery barque which tows the soul through the Netherworld, its arrival in the Hall of Judgement to be weighed against a feather from Maat–the goddess of truth–and its final resting place at the field of reeds where it is united with family members, harvesting plentiful crops along the Nile under a brilliant blue sky forever.