Blog posting for Crossroads: Emergence
From SoSCC founder, Glenn Prestwich:
Although the music had already been commissioned by the Fry Street Quartet (FSQ) and composed by Libby Larsen, the project sounded like an ideal opportunity for the newly-formed SoSCC to become part of a quintessential embodiment of our mission – the expression of science through music, and creating a collaboration between science and the performing arts. To this end, I attended the February 2015 premiere of Libby Larsen’s music by the FSQ, and began a dialogue with Rob and the FSQ about how SoSCC could best participate. In the end, our sponsorship of Emergence took the form of support for videographer Conor Provenzano, whose video projections were presented with actor Robert Scott Smith and the FSQ playing the five-movement string quartet. Since the video was an integral part of the performance art piece, we were recognized in the program in the following manner:
“The Crossroads Project: Emergence was co-sponsored by the Tanner Trust Foundation, the Caine College of the Arts, the Sounds of Science Commissioning Club which is dedicated to the expression of science through music, and in part by The University of Utah’s Entrepreneurial Faculty Scholars program.”
The performance was a stunning example of a full-participation piece, with the FSQ acting as characters in the play’s action as well as the musicians. They quipped, commented, and provided musical commentary including chords to prevent the actor from using profanity! The overall impression was powerful and life-changing. How can we as individuals act in the face of such enormous crises involving depletion and destruction of the precious resources of our planet. Our island planet, where you cannot throw anything away, because there is no “away.” Libby Larsen’s music, as her program notes below support, remind us that music integrated into performance art can be a powerful force for awakening awareness, and that is indeed the first necessary step for change to occur.
From the Program Notes, by Robert Davies:
Crossroads: Emergence joins Crossroads: Rising Tide as the second chapter in a growing collection of performances comprising The Crossroads Project – an experimental and continuing collaboration between science and the arts, bringing to bear the power of performance art on the topic of human sustainability.
Where Rising Tide takes the form of a poetic science lecture with composer Laura Kaminsky’s score erecting a musical space for contemplation, Emergence takes the form of a Shakespearean soliloquy with composer Libby Larsen’s score assuming the role of one person’s inner voice. Where Rising Tide is about what we know, Emergence is about coming to terms with this knowledge on a deeply personal level.
About the Music of the Crossroads Project – Emergence for String Quartet – by Libby Larsen, 2015
“As a point of departure, I suggested that we consider the water cycle as a metaphor for transformation and change. I’ve organized an abstract narrative that explores water’s fundamental and elemental qualities around these water topics: evaporation, condensation, precipitation, fluvial patterns, viscum (captured water, saturation, seepage), alluvium (deltas, river convergences), and natural attenuation.
This narrative adopts the water cycle as an agent for message of interconnectedness, transformation, change and adaptation with the hope of helping to ignite an emergent philosophical flame in those in the audience.
Emergence
Act I. Simmering
Act II. Getting Busy/Falling Down
Act III. Defiance (the bad kind)
Act IV. The Wheels are Coming Off
Act V. A New Tempo
