Cyclature

Cyclature - 26 Cycles for Solo Piano - Music by Amy Wurtz

I am thrilled to announce the album release event for Cyclature, 26 pieces for piano (one including voice!) that I wrote between 2017-2025 which are now brought to life by 21 Chicago-based pianists.  The album will be available on all streaming platforms on September 27, 2026, and available for purchase everywhere music is sold.  

The album release event will feature live performances of many of the Cycles, performed by the fabulous pianists who recorded them for the album, as well as artwork created in the same fashion as the music.  The release event is taking place:

Sunday, September 27, 2026

3:00- 5:00 pm

Clara Bar

2027 West North Avenue

https://www.clarachicago.com/

Parking in that area is extremely limited, so I highly suggest taking the CTA if at all possible!

I’d be so happy to see you there, but if you can’t make it, never fear!  You’ll be able to hear the music in album form and also in a number of future performances we have lined up.

I’m also seeking support for this project.  It has been a long journey and countless hours and bundles of energy have been poured into the creation of this music and artwork.  If you would like to support this art financially, please read my sponsor letter, and I would be honored if you contributed to the project in this way.  I am grateful to those who have already contributed. 

I am also grateful beyond words for the 20 Chicago pianists who joined me in creating this album. Cyclature is, at its heart, a project that speaks to all humans, and the community of pianists I worked with truly brought their best with their top-notch skill and artistry. Check out the album lineup!

Jonathan Hannau

Marianne Parker

Alex Reyes

Sarah Loisch

Wenting Shi

Jeff Panko

Daniel Schlosburg

Marissa Kerbel

Amanda de Boer Bartlett—wait. . she's a soprano.. . what?!?!😉

John Bitoy

Julia Siciliano

Eugenia Jeong

Kuang-Hao Huang

Cacie Miller

Elena Doubovitskaya

Winston Choi

Nicholas Pothier

Sebastian Huydts

Susan Merdinger

Katherine Petersen

Shi-An Costello

These pianists will be in my heart forever. Thank you so much for your participation! Many of them will be playing for the Album Release on 9/27. Don't miss it!

That’s the crux of the matter, but for those of you who like the full story, I will now elaborate in great detail!  

I began writing the Cycles in early 2017.  I had just gotten divorced, had two small children, and was forced to totally re-vamp my way of making life work for the three of us. I was in my early forties and working to establish my place in the world, and I really, truly, wanted to get a handle on my emotions, thoughts, feelings, and my physical health.  I had this little tiny idea to try to separate out what was my “hormones” from the rest of the things I was dealing with in my life, and to try to put those chemical influences into their own unique and rightful place among the various forces acting upon and within me. I thought that if I could give each day of my cycle a voice, I would be able to better understand that cycle, so that when I was feeling one way or the other, I would better know if or how this was being influenced–or even controlled–by the cycles of my physical self.  

So, I set to work.  Starting on January 16, 2017, every night I would work on a certain day of the Cycles.  When I was on Day 1 of my cycle, I would work on Cycle 1.  When I was on Day 2 I would work on Cycle 2, and so forth.  This means that I would only work on each piece every 26 days or so.  “Or so” because it’s not always crystal clear what’s going on (hence the project!) and so I actually have the beginnings of a Cycle 28, 29, and 30 in my drafts, although those pieces never really fully came into being, because it turns out, those days of the Cycle didn’t exist (Or did they?  I digress. . .).  Re-visiting a composition only once every 26 days is a challenging way to work, though after I really got going, I found I was often able to jump in to the pieces right where I had left off.  

Of course, there were exceptions.  There were pieces that I finished very quickly, and others that took me months and months to finally figure out.  Cycle 16, for whatever reason, was the last hanger-on, and I was still working on it easily six months after I had finished all the others.  Certain others, Cycle 4 comes to mind, as well as Cycle 1, underwent huge and drastic transformations during the process, and at one point I think I scrapped a year’s worth of work on Cycle 4 and started fresh.  

I had initially thought this project would take me one year, but wow did I underestimate.  Life kept on happening, I had a lot of things going on, many responsibilities and duties which were much more immediate, and though I give myself somewhere between an A- and a B+ in terms of working every night, I just kept chugging away.  After 8 years or so (and countless cycles) had passed, each piece finally began to take on its final form, then I would take it to the computer and put it into my notation system, then take it back to the piano, and continue revising, revising, revising.  The pieces that I performed over the years got the most revisions!  It turns out, I can always find something or another to adjust or tweak. 

After composing each night, every day of 2017 I would also sit and write in my project-specific journal.  I had 13 pages I dedicated to Day 1, 13 pages for Day 2, etc. etc. and wrote in the journal so that all the pages for each day would be right next to each other.  This way, at the end of the year, I was able to read through all of Day 1 at the same time, and glean from that any patterns or similarities.  It was a strange thing to read through a year of my life in this manner–revisiting things that happened once every 26 days, yet sometimes it seemed like no time had passed, or, at least, nothing had changed, from page to page.

The composing process took so long I ended up repeating the journaling process, so I have another complete set of journals from 2021 which I kept in the same manner.  Re-reading all of this material, as this project nears completion, was a frightful experience–to literally witness myself still dealing with many of the same issues over and over, month after month–even, some of the same things and people from 2017 were still giving me trouble in 2021!  It was a humbling moment, however, I have to say that the true essence of the project–the cycles I go through, really shone through, as I witnessed my younger self dealing with the same things over, and over, and over.  And sometimes, even being able to make some improvements along the way!

I always envisioned that this would be an interesting and fruitful methodology for ANY artist to adopt, and for a long time I kept the whole thing secret from the entire world.  I didn’t breathe a word of this project/process to a single other human being.  Partly, I didn’t want anyone to “steal” my idea, if I’m being honest!  But I don’t think I needed to worry–this is not an easy job to undertake.  But partly, I wanted things to be more fully formed before sharing.  I had always had the idea that I would share the idea with artists of other mediums.  In my mind, I would reverse the process of so much music that had been composed in response to paintings, and find a painter who wanted to paint in response to my music.  

I started seeking out other artists to collaborate with in late 2023.  It turns out, many people were fascinated by my idea, but VERY FEW were motivated to actually try this process out for themselves.  I am so grateful for Anna Lentz, Carmen Petralia, and Erin O’Neill, who met with me, heard my idea, and said “Yes, please!”.  They have been collaborators ever since, with regular meetings between the four of us as they created their work.  

As with any artistic process, and especially with collaboration, things do not always go how you originally envisioned them!  First off, I had wanted to have all the music finished and ready for artists to listen to so they could listen while they painted, or sewed, or sculpted. But the music wasn’t ready!  Or at least not all of it.  So I kept working my way through the composing, while they began their own projects.  Anna took my idea and melded it into one giant quilt, with different panels for the different days of her cycle.  Carmen worked similarly to me, but her medium, clay, is not as friendly to being revisited only once per month or so.  Erin, it turns out, is on birth control that doesn’t give her much of a physical cycle, so she aligned herself with the lunar cycle and created her art on napkins, in a gentle nod to the “sanitary napkins” language of the past.  All of these additions to my own method have enriched and deepened the process for all four of us, and have added richer dimensions to my own work and to the project as a whole than I could have originally envisioned.  I am so grateful to Anna, Carmen and Erin, for their time, energy, thoughts, ideas, and artistic creativity.

We have big plans and ideas for the future!  We have exhibits scheduled which will encompass the artwork and the music, we have a dancer/movement collaborator who is busy working on her own version of Cyclature, and we plan to hold workshops to discuss our process and invite everyone (even people who don’t menstruate!) to try their own version of this process.  I firmly believe that this way of looking at the world and one’s self holds true value for anyone, and would like to share this process I’ve lived –and the music–with anyone who will listen!

At the time of release–Fall 2026–I have literally been working on this project for TEN YEARS.  I am beyond excited to be releasing this music into the world on September 27, and when I say “beyond excited” I mean it:  I’m thrilled, nervous, anxious, eager, confident, looking forward to sharing it with everyone,  and oh my goodness, it’s been a lot of work!  

If you’d like to support this project in a financial way, all you need to do is fill out this form! 

There is also this letter which explains the process of becoming a Sponsor for one of the Cycles.

I’m so grateful to those who have already supported this project. It means the world to me. Thank you to:

Anonymous

Charlene Wurtz

William Jason Raynovich

Alice Dan

Elspeth Revere

George Klippel

Amos Gillespie

Helen Gagel

Seth Boustead

Jeff Panko

Sarah Loisch

Shi-An Costello

Sebastian Huydts

Kuang-Hao Huang

Nicholas J. Yasillo

Jeffrey Wurtz

Joy Rosner

Dorothy Strang

Stacey Wurtz