photo credit: Harry Bertoia Foundation Harry Bertoia © 2021 Estate of Harry Bertoia/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
At the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas: On a special day denoted by all “2’s” (2/22/22), two guitarists made this date historic. Nels Cline and Ben Monder gave a performance for the 125 or so people assembled to watch a stunning performance meshing conventional instruments (guitars) with visual artwork that also doubled as UNconventional instruments.
These pieces of art used to create resonance are sounding sculptures built by Harry Bertoia, the late artist and designer perhaps best known for his mid-century furniture designs but also innovated art that are as appealing to hear as much as they are to look at. Bertoia actually recorded music with these sounding sculptures – 11 albums in all – virtually creating a whole new genre of music that he dubbed “Sonambient.” But the rich and mysterious sounds these sophisticated chimes emit have probably never before been publicly blended with the sounds of what are commonly accepted as instruments and all played by actual musicians … until the Nasher Museum set out to make that happen.
The sounding sculptures consist of groups of metal rods that spring up from a base, each such sculpture of varying in height and how the rods are arranged together. There were also a half dozen pairs of metal tubes of different lengths hanging from the ceiling and three flat gongs, two of them set against a wall and another hung from the ceiling. The twenty or so metal rod sculptures were arrayed in a circle in the middle of the recital room, roughly sketching out a round stage where the performers did most of their work.
That work was an extraordinary display of visual and sonic art working in perfect communion. At the beginning of this 90+ minute improvised performance, Monder and Cline struck, strummed and shook the sculptures, causing mellifluous and sustaining sounds that ranged from an ambient drone to a thundering din. Eventually, the two settled into a pattern whereby one of them played their guitar while the other went around playing the sound devices, working them in concert with the guitar. Then after a while, they would swap roles after a few minutes of both playing guitar.
Both Ben Monder and Nels Cline made heavy use of effects pedals with their guitars, deploying them very effectively to blend in with the sculpture sounds. Indeed, Cline’s long-established mastery of electronic effects and manual manipulations of his guitar – like for instance, inserting a wooden stick between the strings and neck of the guitar and striking the end of the stick with another stick – is the side of him that really came out that night. Monder by contrast leaned heavier on his ample guitar chops, sometimes conjuring up complex chord patterns on the fly.
And this performance was only the beginning. It kicked off six straight nights of the series “SCULPTING SOUND: Twelve Musicians Encounter Bertoia” whereby for each event a pair of musicians playing the same kind of instrument extend the range of timbres out across these sounding sculptures. The lineup of jazz musicians and master improvisors – all virtuosos – are an especially rare treat for North Texas; Monder & Cline, Ambrose Akinmusire & Nate Wooley, Ingrid Laubrock & JD Allen, Jen Shyu & Brandon Seabrook, Marcus Gilmore & Dan Weiss and Kris Davis with Craig Taborn.
Extraordinary music usually results when musicians step out of their comfort zones and put themselves in challenging situations that gives them no other out but to lean on their innate sense of creativity. For the audience who were also asked to step outside their own comfort zones about music and embrace originative art on its own terms, the reward was great.
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