Listen, Quiet is a 15′ long multimedia work scored for percussion, amplified cello, and electronics with film and a simple set by S. Katy Tucker. A VisionIntoArt production.
Commissioned by the Juilliard School for the 2010 inaugural performance of Beyond the Machine at the Willson Theater.
Written for cellist Jeffrey Zeigler and percussionist Pablo Rieppi with backing tracks, drumset, and a prepared water set. The film is in 2 parts and is projected on suspended cloths which also serve as scrims for the performers. The music is in two parts, with each performer taking the lead in their part.
“Listen, Quiet” premiered March 17-20 2010 at the Willson Theater (The Juilliard School’s new state of the art multimedia theater.
This commission celebrated the 10th anniversary of Beyond the Machine, A Festival of Electro-Acoustic and Multi-Media Art. “Listen, Quiet” explores the way I feel about water in my life: it nurtures, heals, separates. The work is based on recorded private conversations that struggle with live performance. The piece was inspired by the third panel in “Going Forth By Day” a multi-channel work by Bill Viola. In this specific video panel, water accumulates throughout the thirty minute cycle, and eventually, washes out an entire home, its memories, delusions, stories. The work is divided in two halves.
Listen: I had recorded an artist’s voice this past summer who was dealing with a great deal of pain, thinking that this work would eventually ease her pain, and illuminate her vicious cycle. The work assigns roles to each player: the cellist narrates, the percussionist is the perpetrator and symbolizes the indifference, at times, of life; the manipulated voices recount her story, and the natural elements eventually wash away her voices, leaving only sounds of nature. Perhaps easing the pain, perhaps narrating that these stories are in fact, the everyday, and they are cyclical.
Quiet: is a hymn to voices from my childhood, of my mother. They tell a story of magic, and of the memories that shaped us both.
This work includes staging, video design, a glass sculpture, and sound design.
Images by Katy Tucker
Photo still from S. Katy Tuckers film.
Jeffrey Zeigler and Pablo Rieppi. Photo by Jill Steinberg.