seven dreams about my body (2024) for microtonal sextet (17')
 I had strange and vivid dreams at the beginning of the pandemic. Like many other people, I dreamt often about crowds, masks, and hospitals - and I also had odd recurring dreams about my body. In each of these seven dream-interludes, my body is not my body but something else. To capture the surreal, foggy atmosphere of these dreams, I extend the sound of the ensemble with a microtonally tuned keyboard.
seven dreams about my body will eventually serve as the interludes between the sung and spoken sections of my doctoral dissertation, a concert-length cycle of vocal-instrumental pieces which explores the intersection of queer longing and psychosomatic illness. This cycle will draw from my recollections of a childhood diagnosis with “conversion disorder,” and will focus on the body and the things it unknowingly stores: memory, trauma, ache, desire.
 
i. dream in which i float on a black sea
ii. dream in which my body is a flock of birds
iii. wasps’ – nest – dream
iv. dream in which my body is a constellation
v. dream in which my body is clockwork
vi. teeth – falling – out – dream
vii. dream in which i cannot walk
 after performance of seven dreams about my body ​by Aspen Contemporary Ensemble and Timothy Weiss

"Paul Novak’s stunning fantasia Seven Dreams About My Body for Microtonal Sextet (2024) offers the most poignant pandemic reflection possible, conjuring spirits of Ravel orchestration and a frustrated, beautiful, and occasionally raging need to find oneself again."
-I Care if You Listen
​selected performances
         Jan. 2025 — Blackbox Ensemble, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL
         Aug. 2024 — Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Aspen Music Festival, Aspen, CO
         Jan. 2024 — Blackbox Ensemble, Blackbox Festival, ShapeShifter Lab, New York, NY
​         Jan. 2024 — Duo Diorama and friends, Tea Time Concert Series, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL