The Voices We Keep

The Voices We Keep is an audio composition inspired by Robert Therrien's 1998 sculpture No title (black telephone cloud). Therrien's work transforms the mundane into the monumental—a mass of black telephones suspended overhead, turning instruments of connection into something both familiar and otherworldly. Therrien's studio was described as "an archive and a place of memory, a place with secret passageways, spaces open to change, and often doors that lead to nowhere." Following this spirit, Novak invited contributors to share memories of moments when something ordinary or mundane sparked a powerful emotion. These recordings—intimate, unscripted reflections—form the foundation of the composition. Woven together synthesizers and recordings of a brass section, the piece becomes an archive of voices: a cloud of personal histories suspended in sound. Like Therrien's telephones, these are objects of communication transformed.