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Revised Score (2025)

because it has no pure products

because the Pacific Ocean sweeps along the coastline

because the water of the ocean is cold

and because land is better than ocean

Learning to Love America is a reflection on a poem by Shirley Geok-lin Lim. When reading the poem, I was thinking, what does it mean to learn to love [a country]? To answer this question, I reflect on the imagery that Shirley Lim describes in her poem, and I translate it into sounds.

This piece is not a prescribed and fixed experience. None of the immigrant stories is the same, though there could be overarching similarities. To reflect it, Learning to Love America has a prescribed path that features several cadenzas where the performer takes the idea and unfolds it according to their preference. Moreover, multiphonics—a technique in which the flute can play several notes simultaneously, forming a harmony, are not precisely notated because each flute and each story is different. Instead, the performer is given quotes from the poem to interpret into harmonies. For example, the first multiphonic that you’ll hear about 10 seconds into the piece will sound like a jacaranda bloom in April and May.

You can read the full poem on poetry foundation