“It is a really interesting project. It’s challenging, but I think it’s going to be great fun,” says AAO artistic director and musician Peter Knight. “It’s such an amazing instrument, that organ, that it’s always a really exciting thing to be able to work with it.”
The Grand Organ is undeniably the centrepiece of Exit Ceremonies, acting as the common thread between bespoke compositions from Simon James Phillip, Austin Buckett and iconic American composer Alvin Lucier.
“The underpinning thing is to create new works that respond to the organ; contemporary works,” says Knight. “The organ is associated with centuries of tradition, and it’s not that often that you hear organs used for anything other than those traditional purposes. So it was always the aim to propose the organ as a contemporary instrument.”
It’s not an exaggeration to say Exit Ceremonies completely reimagines the pipe organ. Perhaps nowhere more so than on Lucier’s composition, Swings, which physically deconstructs the instrument to explore the edges of auditory perception. In other words, Lucier uses the organ to create sonic illusions that quite literally play tricks on the listener’s brain.
“It’s really amazing,” says Knight. “Alvin Lucier wanted us to actually take some of the pipes out of the organ. We’re building a set of brackets to have those pipes rest in. Those pipes are going to be sitting out the front, on the stage. They’re going to be connected to the organ, and to the airing mechanism of the organ by rubber hoses. It’s like he’s taking apart the organ and putting it out on the stage, in front of the audience.”
The piece also involves performers cupping the organ pipes with their hands, manually modulating the frequencies on a microtonal level and generating otherworldly overtones. “Often Lucier’s work has been described as ‘aural hallucination’,” says Knight. “You think you’re listening to one thing, but all of a sudden you’re not – you’re listening to something completely other. It’s like a vision, except it’s a vision that happens in your ear.”
Swings doesn’t just deconstruct the traditions and physicality of the organ, but also the very manner in which we perceive music is being pulled apart and reassembled. Though, don’t get put off if it all sounds too much. As well as serving a conceptual purpose, the compositions in Exit Ceremonies are designed to be enjoyed – to immerse the audience in an ever-changing ocean of sound.
“One of the things that I love about Lucier’s work is that even though it’s experimental and conceptual, it’s always incredibly beautiful,” says Knight. “It’s always a really sensual experience, but you can just enjoy it as well. You don’t have to think about it. You don’t have to know what’s going on. You can sit yourself on a chair and say, ‘OK I’m going to just sit and listen,’ and it’s amazing. I love that. I love when that pure enjoyment of sound meets up with all the conceptual stuff as well.”
Elsewhere on the Exit Ceremonies program is Austin Buckett’s Aisles. A new work that combines influences from minimalism to hip hop, Aisles features looped conversations between the pipe organ, turntables and strings, plus the ethereal voice of Sonya Holowell and the lilting trumpet of Knight himself. Elsewhere, Simon James Phillips’ Flaw brings electronic and acoustic elements together for an open piece that explores mechanical sounds and improvisation. Ultimately, it’s a diverse group of compositions, each with its own unique musicality, but all unified by their willingness to experiment and play with convention.
“It gives each of the players room to bring their voice,” says Knight.
BY JAMES DI FABRIZIO
