ATARAXIA For One Percussionist

Ataraxia (Ἀταραξία) is a Greek term used by Pyrrho and Epicurus for a limpid state, characterized by freedom from worry or any other preoccupation. The piece is about touching and permanent soft movement. Eventhough the instrumentation is full with percussion instruments, the piece is mora a meditative one. For the Pyrrhonians, owing to one’s inability to say which sense impressions are true and which ones are false, it is quietude that arises from suspending judgment on dogmatic beliefs or anything non-evident and continuing to inquire. The experience was said to have fallen on the painter Apelles who was trying to paint the foam of a horse (likely a bit of frothy saliva near its mouth). He was so unsuccessful that in a rage he gave up and threw the sponge he was cleaning his brushes with at the medium, thus producing the effect of the horse’s foam.