Music is much more than just something that can be heard. That is one thing an audience member would realize for sure by attending Kristine Burn's presentation of electro-acoustic music and multi-media performance Saturday evening.
The concert had a most gripping and absorbing effect, drawing the audience in with both computer sounds and visuals on a screen, with both pre-recorded and live voices and movement on stage.
The live performance was done by the (schwa) Ensemble -- a group of seven individuals who have been together since 1993. Their work often encompasses the incorporation of electo-acoustic music, audio processing, and computer based video, combined with live movement and voices.
The sounds themselves are unlike any traditional music one would think of when attending a concert. This recital only exemplifies the expanding vision and limitless possibilities we have in the musical world today.
Most people are familiar with the well-known classical tunes. They listen to the traditional harmonies and the predictable cadences. Even the popular music of today is usually based on the harmonies and familiar sounding rhythms of jazz or classical music.
But in her four pieces, Burns showed how music can go beyond the familiar harmonies, rhythms, and acoustic musical instruments that we have relied on in the past.
One could experience new sounds in this recital -- not a piano or guitar, but the synthesis of electronic and acoustic sounds through computers. It was not always the familiar steady rhythm, but something flowing, with rhythm that was ambiguous. Sounds did not necessarily have pitch or regularity, but were simply sounds, to add to the intricacies of the music.
A particular effective use of sound was in the voices of the performers. They would not only sing, or say poetical phrases, but would also make sounds with their mouths, sounds which would have no pitch but merely interacted with the voices around them. To the unexperienced listener, the creative use of voice in this concert showed how such non-traditional sounds lacking clear pitch or tone can actually contribute in broadening the expression of music.
