Instrumentation: indeterminate.
Total number of performers: indeterminate.
Duration: indeterminate.
Notation: text score.

Heart of the Matter is a composition heavily influenced by American composer and philosopher Pauline Oliveros (1932–2016). It presents a prompt for action that was manifested, in its premiere, by an audio recording. The inception for the piece emerged from evocative conversations with photographer Christina Kolaiti about trying to simultaneously present multiple contrasts: in particular, ocean and forest, water and air, and past and present. This led to a score which prompts the performer to embrace present/past, real/impossible, and super human/humanity dualisms. The recording, performed in Dalby Forest as part of the SelfScapes project, blends found sounds from historical recordings of wind and sea, my trombone playing (which, at times, is time-stretched beyond the limits of human performance), and my own breath.