Currently in the re/search and conceptual design phase, The Saddest Noise, the Sweetest Sound (SNSS) is a 45-minute, experimental ‘opera’ for two performers, ‘dancing’ snare drum, live sound/video processing, pre-recorded video, and animation. Inspired by a Dickenson poem, and by the inventive approach behind Stravinsky’s Faustian fable, The Soldier’s Tale, SNSS probes the values and frameworks of militarism—a phenomenal power that creates a change in someone’s state of mind even as it infiltrates and mediates the social fabric.