Fused by Shuying Li (Commissioned by Carrie Koffman)

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Shuying Li and I became connected because we helped a person die together. That person was her romantic partner at the time, and that person had previously been my husband for 31 years and father of my only child. His death was unexpected.

 

In the aftermath, I asked her if she would be interested in collaborating on the creation of art inspired by our unusual bond. She said she would be.

 

Although our connection is unique in many ways, some aspects of it are not unique at all.

 

I began by trying to find words for what I had experienced and continued to experience. They included words like grief, betrayal, trust, acceptance, shock, anger, weird, respect, disbelief, loss, jealousy, cliché, fear, love, abandonment — and the list goes on.

 

So many of these emotions and experiences occurred in quick succession, or more often simultaneously. These experiences often (usually) had two sides.

 

I came across this quote: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald. But I don’t know why F. Scott Fitzgerald gets credited with it. It’s not a new idea. It is the very essence of yoga, for instance, in that every pose is an intentional integration of opposites, physically, in the same body. The word yoga means “union”.

 

I wondered about a musical fusion/union of these emotions and experiences, and started brainstorming: betrayal/loyalty; fear/courage; grief/gladness; shock/reassurance; disbelief/acceptance; anger/calmness; jealousy/compersion; weird/commonplace; unusual/usual; abandonment/love, etc.

 

And with the idea of a musical fusion came the title. It also has multiple meanings – primarily “to join, or to blend”, but also, “an electrical safety device consisting of a wire that melts and interrupts the circuit when the current exceeds a particular amperage”. And I could relate to that as well. ;-)

 

In other words, we were joined together by a third person who is no longer present, and we shared his death. So, we were “fused” without a choice. And there were other kinds of emotional fuses that kept us safe and fuses that were blown along the way.

 

Now, we’ve chosen to make art. Because, why not? Art can represent life, and life can represent art. As a composer, Shuying relishes her ability to be a musical chameleon, utilizing a wide variety of various and sundry influences. Combining a quick succession of sounds and unexpected musical styles, she created a sonic experience resembling snapshots of her “roller coaster” experience.

 

A note about grief itself — recent research refutes the idea that grief progresses in predictable, sequenced stages. The author Elizabeth Gilbert wrote, “Grief does not obey your plans, or your wishes. Grief will do whatever it wants to you, whenever it wants to. In that regard, Grief has a lot in common with Love.”

 

And so it does. — Carrie Koffman

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Fused began from a simple truth: two people can be connected to the same individual at different times in that person’s life, and each relationship can carry its own history, meaning, and emotional arc. Those relationships can be entirely separate—formed in different periods, without overlap—yet still give rise to emotions that resonate in unexpected ways.

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What struck me most in the aftermath of a shared loss was the complexity of emotion that emerged. Grief intertwined with gratitude, love with disorientation, loss with moments of clarity and peace. Nothing arrived in a straight line. Opposing feelings often existed side by side, and the process of moving through them was nonlinear, shifting, and unpredictable.

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As a composer, my instinct was to render this inner landscape sonically. The piece moves quickly between contrasting colors, gestures, and emotional temperatures—sometimes abrupt, sometimes fluid—mirroring how intense emotions can coexist or flip without warning. Certain emotions can also evolve gradually, shifting into new forms or even transforming into their opposite over time, giving rise to unexpected layers of meaning. Rather than seeking resolution, the music acknowledges the coexistence of opposites: tenderness and rupture, joy and mourning, stillness and chaos.

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Fused is not a portrait of a single relationship or a shared history. Instead, it explores how human beings process powerful, conflicting emotions in their own ways—even when those emotions arise from an event held in common. The music is my personal response to that complexity, offered alongside another artistic perspective in the spirit of dialogue rather than narrative. – Shuying Li