About 10 days ago, while the group was in Melbourne for the 2012 Metropolis Festival in Melbourne, Australia, I had the chance to experience John Luther Adams’ monumental Inuksuit, a 80-90 minute work for 9-99 percussionists (in this performance, I believe, 33), performed outdoors on the campus of Melbourne University. eighth blackbird was first involved with this work as part of the programming at the Park Avenue Armory last year, an event that Alex Ross described as a sonic and scenic glory almost beyond description. If you don’t know the work, it’s simply something that MUST be experienced live if you can swing it–but to get an idea, go here. And check this out.
John Luther Adams has a long and well known history of writing for and about the environment, and most if not all of his compositions reference these views. Inuksuit perhaps best exemplifies this, as it was composed to be performed outdoors. For the performance a year ago in New York, eighth blackbird was involved with the first performance in an indoor space, and while from my perspective as a performer I felt this was a successful and “valid” interpretation of the work, I feel that this piece more than any other is shaped by the location and physical and sonic space in which it is performed. Though my experience of the two performances differed in that in one I was a performer (Armory) and one an observer (Melbourne), I think the greater difference was in experiencing it indoors vs. outdoors.
It’s worth noting that the Park Avenue Armory is located in New York City, the most urban of environments in the United States. The space of the Armory, while huge, is still enclosed, though it is possible to hear outside noises, particularly ambulance sirens. It’s also very resonant, and as a result created a massive maelstrom of sound at the peak of the work, almost terrifyingly loud depending on where you were during the piece (in both performances, audience members are encouraged to wander around the performance space during the work). The work for me had a “caged beast” quality, in that the performers were trying to harness and explore elemental sounds and gestures within a cavernous space, but at all times within an urban environment; explosive, but contained.
Not so the Melbourne performance. Any outdoor space is at once less resonant but also filled with other noises, if one stops to really listen to them. This was true of the campus of Melbourne University, and the beginning of the piece began visually clearly but inaudibly, emerging from the surrounding noise, with audience members quieting down as the piece progressed. The first call on a conch shell evoked some wild beast calling out to others, soon answered, though with the eventual addition of drums, it evoked for me nothing so much as the machines of war beginning to stir, and eventually of a great human battle. This was enhanced by the addition of sirens (more on this below) and multitudinous cymbals conveying a bloody aftermath, which eventually subsided. And then the real magic, and the real difference between the indoor performance, became apparent.
The end of the work includes high ringing instruments (glockenspiel, triangles, etc.), but also a few flutists and piccolo players, who are instructed to play bird calls native to wherever the piece is being performed. This in itself makes every performance unique to its environment, and I would have loved to have heard this except, from where I was laying down on the grass, this sound drowned out everything else. I learned later that this is the call of the native currawong, and this rather large flock, situated in the trees above the performance space, decided to join the performance, at first loudly in response and then, as the piece died away and the sounds from the performers became more sparse, the currawongs became quieter and eventually flew away. It was a magical moment, and this ending, with the birds having the last and final voice, suggested to me the impermanence and futility of man, that long after his wars and machinations on earth, nature will still remain.
It’s hard for me to hear certain elements of this work as being anything other than man-made, which I realize is a much different view than most people, or even the composer, share. In particular, I can’t help but hear air raid sirens as man-made and evoking danger, whether from tornados or, in particular, man-made disasters such as the bombing of London during WWII. I even asked JLA about this in an email after the Armory Performance:
Me: Let me tell you again what a pleasure it was to do Inuksuit at the Armory on Sunday, which was really transporting. One thing I wanted to ask you about but forgot–sirens. Most of the instruments you specify for the piece, at least to me, have a “natural” sound, or can be derived from nature. Except sirens, which to me sound more “man-made” and artificial, though I thought they worked amazingly well in the Armory (visions of call to battle, firetrucks and “danger” in general). I’ve also heard other pieces where you use sirens—does their sound mean something specific to you, and do they mean something in Inuksuit?
JLA: I use them for purely sonic reasons. And although I’m well aware of the extra-sonic associations, over the years I’ve come to hear them just as they are. At the Armory they seemed to fit in with the surroundings perfectly. During the rehearsal on Saturday, I heard a lone siren very late in the piece. My first thought was that one of the musicians was lost. Then I realized it was an ambulance or fire truck passing by on Lexington Avenue. In our performance of Strange and Sacred Noise out on the tundra, the sirens also seemed very natural. They might well have been wolves howling or other animals calling.
While the Melbourne performance was outside, it felt more enclosed and literally walled off and apart from the city by being contained with a ring of student housing and university buildings, though not as enclosed as the Armory. eighth blackbird’s next performance of Inuksuit, on Sunday August 26 for the Midwest premiere of the work, will be another interesting juxtaposition of the piece vs. its environment, as Millennium Park is right in downtown and the sonic backdrop will be at least as much man-made (people, cars, low flying aircraft, Rahm Emanuel’s motorcade) as it is natural. But still, definitely worth checking out, especially if you haven’t had this experience live.
