Perfection
A performance installation part of the 2014 New Works Festival at Calarts. The installation is of well known orchestral repertoire which will challenges the performer to either play perfectly or musically as the performance goes on. The performer is housed in a perfection box, made of wood, chicken wire, and walls made of orchestral parts and is given the task play as each excerpt as musically as possible. A complete copy of the perfection box houses a laptop and speaker which plays pre-recorded excerpts played perfectly. The length of the performance challenges for the performer, tiring them and will in turn cause the quality to dwindle as the performance progresses. This challenges the musician mentally to maintain focus through the physical exhaustion.
A critique on the current artistic mentality of the orchestral musician. Sometimes perfection rather than musicality can have precedence. This paradigm shift from creating musical performances to perfected performances has crept into musicians mentality changing music from an art form to academic preservation. In asking the performer to play this repertoire musicality, it has them imagine the music in new ways.
performance dates: 4/24/14, 5/7/14
