My experience as a host and music director at the campus radio station has given me a unique, close-up view of pop culture. This composition is a modern reinterpretation of a Baroque dance suite, blending classical forms with contemporary dance styles, such as jazz, Latin, house, and trance, as well as global influences like Balinese gamelan, Hula music, and African interlocking rhythms. In this era of superficiality, the suite reflects my personal vision of what a dance suite might sound like today.

I. Prelude – Prenup
The prelude offers a glimpse of the themes to come. Echoing real-life tensions, the prenuptial agreement serves both as a beginning and an end to a relationship, foreshadowing the conflicts ahead.

II. Allemande – Annulment
This movement blends the traditional allemande rhythm with the gamelan's orchestrion principle. A techno-inspired section is inserted between the A section and its recapitulation, representing an abrupt collapse of union.

III. Courante – Autopsy
Beginning with a bossa nova groove under a bright glockenspiel courante melody, this movement gradually disintegrates with “wrong notes” that evoke something beautiful yet lifeless. The middle section replicates the rhythm and structure of the Courante from J.S. Bach’s English Suite No. 6, layered with atonal counterpoint. The pitchless C section—a modern take on African interlocking rhythm—dissects the music like an autopsy. The return to Latin rhythms represents a stitched corpse. Gamelan elements subtly echo earlier material.

IV. Interlude – Alibi
A quiet, slow bridge that foreshadows future movements. This interlude musically embodies the alibi: a moment of stillness and absence that masks deeper truths.

V. Sarabande – False Confession
Structured in rondo form and inspired by the documentary Casting JonBenet (2017), this movement presents a contrapuntal sarabande refrain. The episodes quote highly recognizable Russian ballet scores—Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker (1892), Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring (1913), and Schnittke’s Peer Gynt (1993)—alluding to false memories and layered truths.

VI. Air – Polygraph
The only movement incorporating pre-recorded material. Simulated heartbeat sounds and a polygraph machine motif are set against a chord progression borrowed from Movement I. Innocent, artificial “Hula-like” motifs intertwine with jazz improvisation to conjure the emotional tension of an interrogation room.

VII. Gigue – Filicide
Opening with a lullaby hummed by the percussionist, this final dance returns to the pitchless themes of Movement III. The innocence of childhood is interwoven with haunting undertones of loss and violence.

VIII. Epilogue – Right to Silence
The epilogue revisits material from Movements I, II, and VI with a softer, more reflective tone, suggesting gentleness, but also ambiguity.