Machiavelli’s Conscience refers to the Italian writer and philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli who is perhaps best known today for having written a political treatise called The Prince in the early 1500s. To quote Wikipedia: “The descriptions within The Prince have the general theme of accepting that the aims of princes—such as glory and survival—can justify the use of immoral means to achieve those ends.” Think: Frank Underwood from House of Cards. This is where the word “Machiavellian” comes from. When a person is described as being Machiavellian, he or she is allegedly “cunning, scheming, and unscrupulous, especially in politics or in advancing one’s career.” The more I discovered Machiavelli (who wasn’t known for always writing this darkly… he wrote comedies and plays and songs, too), the more I became fascinated by how a person like this could possibly come to some of these morally-outrageous but politically-justified conclusions. At its core, I think the octet imagines the cogs of such a conflicted mind at work as it searches for a way to justify these radical ideas in the name of power and ego.

Machiavelli’s Conscience premiered on April 23, 2017 at the University of Illinois in Champaign, Illinois, under the direction of Sean Smith. The musicians were: Tori Lupinek (flute), Anjali Sivaainkaran (clarinet), Annie Lyle Mason (bassoon), Garrett Jones (bassoon), Ashley Hedlund (trumpet), Dylan Meyer (trumpet), Brandon Jarot (trombone), Reid Lasley (bass trombone).