All that remains: Residual Moments (composed by Frank Horvat)

Countdown to Residual Moments

It’s a week to go before the world premiere of All that remains: Residual Moments, a large-scale performance art installation featuring music, film and live performance. Rehearsal with members of the Thin Edge New Music Collective went splendidly well today.

My multi-year collaboration with innovative video artist, Gunilla Josephson, is shaping up very nicely. Thin Edge’s musicians are pros! In order for their live parts to stay in sync with the film and fixed electronics, they have to play along with a click track. Musicians know that that can sometimes be tedious and annoying. But their technical precision and expressiveness for this hour-long piece is amazing!

All that remains: Residual Moments can be described as more of an exhibition than an event, more of a transformation of time and space than a concert, more of a unifying experience than an installation. This larger-than-life immersive sensory experience utilizes music, video imagery and human presence as the stage for the unveiling of our memories from childhood.

It will be presented with moving image, original instrumental music, live musicians and a designed soundscape.

The first phase of production saw members of Thin Edge filmed improvising musical fragments and in conversation with Gunilla talking about memories of childhood that have influenced their lives. This took place at The MPL – Film and Audio Studios, engineered by Mat Keselman. Our Director of Photography was Jason Ebanks.

In collaboration with writer Lewis DeSoto and artist/editor Lillian Ross-Millard, Gunilla edited the visual material into a 60-minute, triptych format [3-part] film.

Following Gunilla’s work, I composed a soundtrack featuring a score combining live instrumentation for a quintet (flute-violin-cello-vibraphone-piano) with a fixed electronics part, including excerpts from some of the improvised elements recorded in the 1st phase.  

The final step in our creative process is to have the work presented live on November 15 in Toronto! Thin Edge members will play along with the film (the same musicians appearing both in the film and live simultaneously). Rather than in a traditional concert setting, we’re excited that this will take place at The Aperture Room, a cool, large open-concept event space in the heart of downtown. The musicians will be in the middle of the room playing along with Gunilla’s film that will be projected around the room. The audience will be free to walk about, stand, sit or lie down in any part of the outside circumference of the room.

As we see other people recounting their memories, our own memories are evoked and we understand the commonality of human experiences and are transported into an atmosphere that offers release and liberation from memories that subconsciously continually loop in our minds.  

Following Nov 15, the goal is to find partners to produce a 12-hour version of the work involving more interviews with more musicians.
  
For now, we’re all focussed on our pilot project. This would definitely not be possible without the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.

If you (or someone you know) is in Toronto on Nov 15, please attend! Honestly, it’s going to be a poignant and immersive experience you will not forget.