Topic: ART NEWS
The Public Domain
By Tammy Duffy
Music is intimate. Who controls one's entrance into a work of art? You do. Who controls the experiences you have in life? You do.
This summer I saw a Tweet on Twitter. This tweet talked about in 140 characters about a unique opportunity in NYC to sing in an amazing performance, the public domain. I proceeded to the website the tweet referenced and signed up to particpate. I was confirmed to be a part of the performance as a singer.
I sing to my rescue dogs every day, they find it very soothing. I have played the flute since I was in the 5th grade. I can read music and carry a tune.
As I proceeded to attend the first rehearsal I quickly became transformed. Our strand leader Deborah Simpkin-King helped all of us warm up our voices and teach us the score. Many of the participants had never read a note of music. Yet, she was able to teach them the score.
The Public Domain is a once in a life opportunity to sing piece of music that has been written for 1,000 singers. This has never been done before, in the whole history of music. Composer David Lang, who won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Music for the little match girl passion, has written a score that is incredibly romantic, the public domain. This piece was commissioned by Lincoln Center and has its world premiere on August 13 at 5pm, as part of the Mostly Mozart Festival. Simon Halsey is such an energetic conductor. He creates an electric atmosphere that is contagious. You just want to sing your heart out for him.
This piece came to fruition when Lang attended an Arsenal soccer match and the sounds around him as people cheered, chanted, and sang sparked his creativity. This is how he created, the public domain score. There is singing and choreography as part of the piece.
When those entering the fountain area of Lincoln Center on Saturday, Aug. 13, the public will feel like you are at a football match. You have all of these different sources coming at you from different sides. Sometimes they’re doing different things, sometimes they’re doing exactly the same thing but they’re out of sync with each other because they’re so far apart. The sound is quite deep. The distance between voices make it seem like you are in the middle of something vast. You will see the singers perform choreography that connects the singers to the music.
I would go straight from work to a 3 hour rehearsal at night. I would drive some nights 2 hours to get to rehearsal and drive 2 hours to get home. These were very long days for me, yet, I never missed a rehearsal and constantly practiced at home with the videos they created for us of the score.
The public domain is about building a large community around the things that people share. We live in a very fragmented world. We go to different kinds of entertainments, we watch different kinds of programs on our various different devices, we have different political opinions. And there are things that are encourage us to identify ourselves in such a way that we push other people away. Because this is about a crowd, a mass idea, the Internet was very helpful in creation of the score. To generate the text, Lang did endless Internet searches of things that we share. As you know, you ask one question of the Internet and you get 10 million answers. Most of them are pornographic or say terrible things about other people and you can’t use them. So he had to sift through all the answers to say this one is actually something he could build a piece around.
Ny'ers who come to watch this performance will bring an additional essence to the piece. The will create an additional layer of complexity.
In the spirit of the Mostly Mozart Festival’s conception, the world premiere of the public domain by Pulitzer Prize winner David Lang will be a performance that not only welcomes the public as a free and open event, but will also be performed by the public. A piece inspired by the theme of the collective knowledge shared amongst us all, the composition will be performed on Saturday, August 13, by 1,000 volunteer vocalists from throughout New York City, conducted by Simon Halsey, Choral Director of the London Symphony Orchestra. We have all lended our voices to make our Lincoln Center debut for this unique event.
So what does a gal after this, to top this kind of experience? Next week, I will climb Mt Kilimanjaro in Africa. I hope you can attend this performance. It's lovely!
http://mostlymozart.org/thepublicdomain/
