Quirkhead – Nina Shekhar

Quirkhead (2017)
Composed by Nina Shekhar

Performed by:
Holly Sedilos, soprano
– The Lyris Quartet –
Alyssa Park, violin
Shalini Vijayan, violin
Luke Maurer, viola
Timothy Loo, cello

Performed during the 2019 Hear Now Fesitval!

Program notes:
I was born a quirkhead. I was the little girl who tapped every wall she walked by and believed that vegetables had feelings. I counted the number of times I swallowed because I was terrified that otherwise I would trigger the next apocalypse.

I didn’t know that millions of others lived this way, until my seventh grade teacher observed that I wrote sentences in a specific arrangement. I explained to her that I associate letters and words with certain connotations, and because I like the word “left” better than “right,” I write the words I like better to the left and the others to the right. She told me about obsessive-compulsive disorder. I felt liberating knowing that I wasn’t alone, but I felt ashamed that everyday tasks felt impossible for me.

Through years of counseling and self-healing, most tics subsided. But it took me years to realize that having OCD didn’t make me a horrible human being. In fact, it made me a better one because it gave me immense patience through performing endless compulsions and allowed me to be more empathetic towards others. My brain will always be wired differently, but maybe that’s okay. And I’m finally proud to be myself – I’m proud to be a quirkhead.

This work was premiered by Tony Arnold and Third Angle New Music in Portland, Oregon and created under the aegis of the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy for Music.

Quirkhead – Nina Shekhar –
Text:
dog to the left
fish to the right
bear to the left
pig to the right
cow to the left
shark to the right

how do I know it’s real
this hurting,
wounding suffering?
how do I know this wrecking
blistering figment of my imagination,
the demons lurking in my mind?
rest, brain.
close your eyes.
let’s quiet those voices,
and sleep until we wake up.

out of the bed, left side
hands to the floor
now turn around
and run around the bed three times and go
faster
into the bathroom
tap the faucet four times
touch the floor, touch the wall
turn the lights
on, off, on, off
need to finish by eight forty-two
wash your hands
wash them again and again
until their chapped
dog to the left
blink six times now
oh no, it’s eight forty-one
fish to the right
need to finish
must finish now.


must save my loved ones
must sacrifice myself for them
my heart

my soul
my mind is ready to snap

oh no, I didn’t make it
i’m sorry that I love you.
but maybe I should love myself a little more
and see how beautiful this haunted mind is
because it’s not my fault.


and I don’t know what the future will hold
but tomorrow is a new day.

Composer Bio:
Nina Shekhar’s music explores the intersection of identity, vulnerability, love, and laughter. Her works have been performed by Eighth Blackbird, ETHEL, Tony Arnold, Third Angle New Music, The New York Virtuoso Singers, and Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra, and have been featured by Carnegie Hall, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Sawdust, National Flute Association, North American Saxophone Alliance, GLFCAM, I Care If You Listen, and WNYC/New Sounds. Upcoming projects include a new work for Music from Copland House, multiple performances by Eighth Blackbird on their current season, and a commission for the International Contemporary Ensemble to be premiered at LA Philharmonic’s Noon to Midnight Festival, sponsored through the National Composers Intensive. She is a recipient of the 2015 ASCAP Morton Gould Award and 2018 Leonard Bernstein Award.
Nina is also a versatile performing artist, studying flute with Amy Porter, performing as a piano soloist with the Lublin Philharmonic, and as a saxophonist in the Detroit International Jazz Festival.
Nina is pursuing composition graduate studies at University of Southern California, studying with Ted Hearne and serving as a composition and aural skills teaching assistant. She earned dual undergraduate degrees in composition and chemical engineering at University of Michigan, studying with Evan Chambers, Bright Sheng, Kristin Kuster, Michael Daugherty, and Erik Santos.