space, breath, time


2015, installation / performance,

Documentation from 18 July, 2015 performance at Queen Elizabeth Hall Foyer in London as part of the Hayward Gallery exhibition "Echoes and Reverberations".

Notes:

The performance is intended to be a series of musical conversations, spanning from the micro to the macro. It begins with an internal conversation with yourself (the performer), your place in time and sound, extending to your fellow colleagues performing alongside you, out to the audience, and beyond, the environment and history as a whole. Its purpose is to expose the internal manifestation of a cosmic system, so that something of our great struggle is conveyed.

Not necessarily for harmonium, but for any instrument given asylum. For any number of performers.

This piece is an opportunity for an interpreter. It demands no very sophisticated formal approach. The interpreter may embellish, decorate, strip, or fill as they feel – with a focus on any patterns that can be produced on the instrument that cannot be produced by any other instrument or by the voice.

Play a section until you exhaust the thought, at which point pause for a moment of silence before collectively beginning the next conversation.

Durations are free.

The performance is experienced spatially, with performers spread across a wide area immersing the audience, allowing them to walk between the sound, amongst the performers, interact with them, to freely explore the sonic characteristics of the performance area.