Beyond This Point: “Musician Minus Instrument”
What does a musician become without their instrument? Can they use their skills in other ways, and still make music? What are the boundaries of what we can all agree is an “instrument”? What does musical virtuosity become if we don’t have 88 keys, 4 strings and a bow, or a polished brass tube through which to experience it?
Living up to their name, Chicago-based collective ensemble Beyond This Point explores these questions in a concert that both breaks and expands what it means to be a musician and a performer. The musicians’ “instruments” run the gamut from a loose jack cable to an IKEA desk lamp to their own bodies and voices. Each work is suffused with musical virtuosity, but that virtuosity is brought to bear on an object or context that seems to resist being labeled as “musical”. Yet, after passing through the eye of the needle, the performers and audience alike emerge on the other side having glimpsed at a possible future where musical expression is no longer constrained to the world of instruments.
Additional Details
Program
Please note that this program includes flashing lights which may not be suitable to those with photosensitivity.
Program:
Situation No. 7 - Imagination
François Sarhan (b. 1972)
for 2 performers
Hypochondriac
David Bird (b. 1990)
for two performers, interactive electronics, and lights
Longevity of Lightbulbs (and how to make them last longer)
Stefano D’Alessio (b. 1987)
for IKEA desk lamp and live electronics
Home Work
François Sarhan
for solo performer
Situation No. 15 - Freiheit und Macht
François Sarhan
for solo performer and 2 assistants
4c0st1ctr1g3r
Kaj Duncan David (b. 1988)
for MIDI percussion pad, 909 Clap and 808 Kick samples, light/shadow.
b
Simon Løffler (b. 1981)
Trio for guitar effects pedals, fluorescent lights, and loose jack cable
