Order Score, Parts, and Electronic Files From:

A – Zythum, scored for soprano and baritone with banjo, guitar, viola, vibes and percussion, and fixed audio, celebrates all words appearing on the spines of the Oxford English Dictionary during its first publication period from 1884 – 1928. This raucous accounting is framed by words that begin and end the dictionary: A; Zythum. In addition, the composition draws upon the definitions and usages of Hobbit and Walrus, two words defined by J.R.R. Tolkien (who worked as an editor for the OED), having them emerge from and temporarily halt the chronologically ordered stream of words labeling each volume. Two ‘ghost words’—Dord, Abacot (impostors that escaped the editors’ scrutiny and were published but actually did not exist)—are embedded in the body of the score. 

A – Zythum unfolds in three sections:

1. the letter A

2. A - Zythum

3. the last word

I am grateful to the Library Foundation of Los Angeles for providing this opportunity to create a musical composition honoring the greatest work in dictionary-making ever undertaken, a true wonder of world scholarship.

—-Anne LeBaron