A young composer sits at an old Baldwin grand, hedged in by the shabby walls of a dilapidated music room. The decay of the surroundings appeals to her for the work she must do. She crashes down upon the black and white keys—the piano sounding metallic and raw—notes rising and falling with increased intensity, bringing life back to dying space. The old walls whisper to her, their voices channeled into musical actuality. In a withered body, the soul can shine brightly.

"I was so inspired in that building," says Chris Lastovicka. "I can't even put my finger on exactly what it was. But there was such an openness. It was very authentic. When I auditioned at various music schools, the Cincinnati Conservatory had the most decrepit practice room. I didn't want to be in a pristine environment. It was so old and falling apart, but I felt so much alive there."

That building has long since been torn down. The chamber pieces that the summa cum laude graduate composed there waited more than a decade before finding their home on Fortune Has Turned, released last September on Ahari Press. The composer felt that she didn't have the maturity until now to deal with any of it. She knew intuitively that she needed to hold back. It was difficult for her to talk about the pieces. It still is.

Like many artists, Lastovicka's work is inspired by that of other artists. In her case, the driving force is literature. "It's so difficult for me to find words," she explains. "Opposites attract, and writers who can put these things into words are a solace for me. Communication for me is this vast, black void, except through music. My music is more about the concepts and the ideas behind it rather than the techniques I'm using."

Technically, her compositions are based on architecture. Using simple, repetitive phrases, the pieces slowly unfold and build psychologically with increasing ferocity, reaching a climax, then resolving. She's interested in that tension and the balancing of polarities. From the beginning notes, listeners can feel that the particular literature that has inspired Lastovicka isn't light and pretty. This is formidable stuff, dark and tempestuous. Her desperate keys are magnified by violin, viola, cello, French horn, and occasional vocal chants on this recording.

"Abraxas" is based on Hermann Hesse's Demian, which was written while Hesse underwent psychoanalysis with Carl Jung. The ancient Gnostic god Abraxas is one of both good and evil nature; as a bird (soul) fights to break free of its shell and fly to its god, it must destroy a world in order to be born. In the piece, a lone repeated note is joined by another, and still another, the increasing tempo ushering in a lone repeated note on French horn. Sparse, melancholy strings follow, severity increases. It is both terrifying and beautiful.

"I had just started college and was really lonely," says Lastovicka. "The big thing in my life was reading Demian. The book was really my best friend and it touched me so deeply, as I think it does for many people coming of age. I had the image of the bird coming out of the egg, being born into a new life, and of me leaving home and feeling such a vast sense of freedom that I'd never felt before. The idea that nobody knew where I was at any particular time was a rebirth for me, and it was also very difficult."

"The Tender Ones," which won a Hatz Award, draws its title from Rainer Maria Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus, another work that Lastovicka was engrossed in. The distraught piece, written for French hornist Robert Garcia, features the solitary horn and piano. It takes us back inside the shell. "There was again that combination of beauty and pain, another duality that interested me at the time. I felt so vulnerable, and at the same time so confident moving on in my life. I kept having an image of the womb, and I was thinking of what it might have been like to be in that womb. The absolute comfort juxtaposed with birth is pretty harrowing, but it's fascinating and exciting at the same time."

"The 7th Chapter of Job" is music taken directly from "Crossing the Horizon," an epic poem by E.M. Lauricella and an opera by the same name. The extended literary work is based on someone's authentic experience with UFO abduction. Lastovicka met the writer in Cincinnati at a poetry reading. "We shook hands and it was like lightning," she says. "We had such a strong connection. She gave me the original version, which was one verse per page, right on the center of the page. Each one seemed so powerful and intense. I went through the whole thing late at night, and it was so out of my control that I was propelled to do something with it. It hit such a chord with me." As the title suggests, the composer likens the suffering of the Biblical Job to the suffering of Lauricella's protagonist and the acceptance of one's fate. The author writes: "Like a swinging door, a bell ringing all afternoon, the blood revolves in my veins. I am still on the table against my will. This roar. This ultraviolet speed. This skin of light. This knot of steel." In the musical piece, furious strings repeat and loop their strain over the composer's distressed playing, followed by the eerie chanting of three vocalists.

Shanti—Sanskrit for peace—was the name of Lastovicka's childhood dog, who passed away during the composition. The piece was also written during and after Lastovicka's first major love relationship with a woman, a dark union that began in a rapturous place and ended with the lowest of lows. Devastated by it all, she found hope and comfort in the hypnotic repetitions of open chords. The final piece, "The End of Tyranny," is also based on a cryptic Lauricella poem that Lastovicka felt must be expressed musically through strings, piano, horn, and chant.

The title of the CD, Fortune Has Turned, seems to spring from the tenth trump of the tarot oracle known as Fortune, the wheel of eternal change, the symbol of the revolving heavens proclaiming the fates of human beings. To Lastovicka, she believes it emerged from the dramatist Euripides's play "Heracles." "I was interested in Greek tragedy and the words popped out at me. It was so poetic. 'Fortune' and 'turned' share so many letters, and the picture of the ambiguity of not knowing which way fortune is turning."

The composer, who has lived in Philmont, in Columbia County, for the past six years, was born in Houston, Texas, and grew up in Hartsville, South Carolina. Her parents—an atheistic scientist and a religious artist—were prone to strong opinions and were able to communicate well, exposing the child to polarity from birth. Her mother was her primary musical influence, as she played many instruments well. Lastovicka began playing piano at age three, and soon knew composition would be her life's calling and duality her focus.

"I felt [my parents] were both right. They were speaking their own truths, which taught me there is no one way. I don't have a set of beliefs myself, but duality has interested me for a long time." She is also drawn to the mysterious in life. "I feel really safe in mystery, things that are unknown. If the mystery is gone, then my interest is gone and that's what disturbs me the most. If there isn't any interest, there's not going to be a piece."

Part of the mystery that draws her in is the enigma of death, a topic many fearfully avoid. Lastovicka entertained the idea of becoming a funeral home director long before watching an episode of HBO's "Six Feet Under." "I want to have control over my own death," she reveals. "I would even like to be able to plan it. I want to die happy. I would love to be able to pick a date that I think might be in the prime of my life, and just end it then. Honestly, if it weren't for the people who care about me, I'd probably do it right now," she laughs. Though she expresses her darkness through her art, Lastovicka doesn't consider herself dark at all.

Death permeates her newest electronic work, Under and Above, which is not slated for release until 2007. It consists of two lengthy hypnotic pieces—"Spring" is based on a painting by Andrew Wyeth in which melting snowdrifts reveal the body of a man. Through "Dwelling Place," she expresses the view of a cemetery looking up from the grave. "I have a particular [grave] I'm thinking of, the one I thought I would be buried in, but I probably won't be because I'm going to be cremated."

At the present time, all proceeds from Fortune Has Turned will go toward Oxfam America and Columbia Land Conservancy. "Everyone who played on the CD did it for free," she says. "They were so generous. I felt I needed to give back as much as I could."

To purchase Lastovicka's mesmerizing work, visit www.aharipress.com.