Performance Archive

Still Sounds Run Deep

Monday, June 21, 2010 at 12:00pm

Apple Store Chelsea Pedestrian Oasis – 14th Street & 9th Avenue, New York, NY 10014

Subway: A,C,E,L to 14th Street

As part of Interactive Music New York, Manhattan New Music Project presents Still Sounds Run Deep, a site-specific, sonic event.

Composed by Paul Nash and performed under the musical direction of Art Baron, Still Sounds Run Deep occupies a special place in our institutional history and Nash’s compositional output.

It is one of Nash’s most performed works. Inspired by his experience with site specific sculpture program at the Djerassi Foundation in California, it was originally written in 1997; in 2000, he revised it and received funding from the Jerome Foundation in 2000 to produce the work in nine city parks, from Fort Tryon to City Hall in partnership with the Department of Parks. The piece was performed for a number of years hence, including in Herald’s Square in 2005 in memorial for Nash, who met an untimely death as the result of a brain tumor.

Still Sounds Run Deep is described as a sonic event because it is not intended for a formal concert setting; it is more in the nature of a happening; musicians play outdoors in the urban environment interacting with sounds that they hear in that soundscape: sirens, traffic, people, nature. Working from a score with graphic notation, some musical ideas are fixed and time is measured carefully by means of synchronized stop-watches. Musicians stop and listen to the environment for one minute intervals. Wild card rule to react musically to extraordinary sound events (such as the passing of fire engines). The piece is an hour in length and will be performed by 10 players:

Art Baron – musical director & conductor
Jane Ira Bloom – soprano sax
Briggan Kraus – alto sax
Erik Lawrence – tenor sax
Jack Walrath – trumpet
Steven Bernstein – trumpet
Curtis Fowlkes – trombone
Vincent Chancey – French Horn
Marcus Rojas – tuba
Lou Grassi – drums

Interactive Music New York
This performance is part of Interactive Music New York (IAMNY), a unique program of interactive music performance and outdoor installations as part of the fourth annual Make Music New York. IAMNY will unfold as a walking tour of public sites arranged along a designed area of Manhattan. At each location, musicians and their instruments will present original compositions that interact with the audience, the immediate environment, or with various forms of technology to deliver a dynamic and spontaneous musical experience. Interactive music demonstrations will also be conducted during the program.

This performance program is made possible with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.