artistic statement

by Paul Dresher

It gives me great pleasure to finally be compelled to produce these notes as it indicates that we are nearly at the end of a journey which commenced several years ago and whose destination was largely a mystery when undertaken. Fortunately it has been a wonderful trip, starting with an invitation back in 1995, from the members of Zeitgeist, with the support of the Walker Art Center, to compose for them an evening-length chamber work that was in some way theatrical.

I'm sure this invitation was inspired by the fact that since 1980 I have produced a great deal of collaboratively created music theater, typically combining opera singers with chamber and live electronic music. What Zeitgeist was unaware of was that prior to 1980, I had been deeply involved in acoustic musical instrument invention, inspired by artists such as Harry Partch, Lou Harrison, and the musical ensembles from Indonesia and Africa. Since that time I had largely abandoned this avenue of exploration in favor of electronic music systems. However, in 1993 I met composer Ellen Fullman and saw her remarkable invention, the "Long String Instrument." I realized that there were still many possibilities in the realm of acoustic instrument innovation and that in additionally, there was an inherently powerful theatrical component to musical performance on invented musical instruments (something which Partch was always conscious).

Thus I proposed to Zeitgeist that I would invent a stage set comprised primarily of large-scale invented musical instruments and that I would compose a work which combined these invented instruments with their traditional instrumentation and electronic music. In other words, a piece that combined pretty much all the important attributes of my work since I was a teenager.

To undertake the design and construction phase of this project I turned to Daniel Schmidt, with whom I had collaborated on American gamelan instrument designs in the 1970's. In the summer of 1998 we established an instrument building shop and have worked together closely on all phases of design and construction since then. His contribution to what we see and hear in this performance cannot be overestimated.

One of the other key things I have learned in creating music theater is that as a composer, I neither possess the skills nor inclunation to develop the work being created from the viual, choreographic or theatrical perspective. From the beginning it was clear that we needed someone in a role which combined the skills of a director, a choreographer, and a musician. This is a hard person to find but I knew that long-time collaborator Rinde Eckert was exactly the kind of artist who possessed all these talents, along with those of a writer/creator. He has given a shape to the elements I created and then built a theatrical and human dimension of his own with these materials.

Contributing immensely to all phases of this project have been the musicians of Zeitgeist who have brought their remarkable musicianship and participated in the development of the work as true collaborators. Their commitment to bringing this project to completion was total and essential. I cannot thank Heather Barringer enough for her unrelenting efforts to bring this project to fruition. In addition, I want to thank individuals John Killacky, Philip Bither, Lou Siegal, and Arnie Malina, along with the California Arts Council and the LEF Foundation which supported some of my work on the project.

by Rinde Eckert

A six-inch metronome is just a metronome. A sixteen-foot metronome is architecture. The monumental is never simple; it obstructs the view (or provides it); it exaggerates. So meanings are entailed in it, associations are drawn from it, and questions arise around it. Here on this stage we are charged with the management of a small economy of abstract ideas and concrete metaphors about a 16-foot pendulum, a 4-meter string instrument (called a quadrochord), and 70-foot singing wires. Of what does it all remind us? What does it inspire in us? How might it change the way we move and think? Sound Stage is a response to these dramatic questions and demands of these five musicians.