October 1 Program

TANG READERS CHORUS
Elizabeth Aaron, Isabelle Albin, Ajay Barde, Keenan Bartlett, Morgan Baum, Nicholas Brown, Luc Chatelain, Melia Coletta, Nicole Confalone, Benjamin Curell, Alexander Freeman, Magden Gipe, Alicia Graziano, Sayeed Joseph, Noam Kahn, Claire Lipsman, Liz Macy, Nicholas Masiero, Christopher Ostaszewski, Michael Reeves, Joshua Sager, Daniel Savitz, David Stephenson, Keara Sternberg, 
Haruko Tanaka, Andrei Tuluca, Graham Van Korff, Vir Vohra


The evening began just outside the Tang Museum next to the Jonathan Seliger sculpture of a shopping bag called "Politeness Counts." The piece was written just a week before with yours truly and Skidmore seniors Elizabeth Aaron and Alicia Graziano. It was inspired by the sculpture and the student athletes walking by it as they went to and from practice. The Readers Chorus split into two groups as they huddled up on each side of the sculpture and proceeded to express their appreciation for the people in their lives...

Ian Byers-Gamber / Machine Project



Next we moved into the museum and into the exhibition "Affinity Atlas" where we performed "Time Warp" written by Skidmore student Will Kaplan. The Chorus walked through the exhibition chanting a score consisting of the words "Past, Now, Future."

Ian Byers-Gamber / Machine Project


The Chorus then convened on the museum staircase to perform one of the Readers Chorus LA pieces called "Butte/Mesa" written by Kate Kendall. We were joined by the audience as well who had a picture of the score in their little program zines.

Ian Byers-Gamber / Machine Project

We then moved upstairs and into Machine Project's installation that takes up the entire second floor. With the audience seated in a recreation of the Mystery Theater (which can be found in the basement of the Machine Project's Storefront location in Los Angeles) the Chorus performed "Whitney Houston." Written by Rob Brown, this was the first piece written by a Skidmore Student. Rob came on board during the summer by way of Intercultural Communications professor Cathy Silber and wrote the piece during the first few weeks of his semester abroad in Hangzhou, China! A former gamelan member himself, Rob was inspired by the "kecak" chant he had learned in Liz Macy's gamelan class when composing "Whitney Houston."

Ian Byers-Gamber / Machine Project


When we were first talking about bringing Readers Chorus to the Tang with Machine Project, Mark Allen asked me what would be the 1 thing I'd like to accomplish with the Readers Chorus at the Tang? I said that my wish would be to have the pieces read by a very large Chorus. Wish granted! It was amazing to hear "Readers Rajio Taiso / Readers Radio Calisthenics" (the follow-up to my first piece written for a Readers Chorus, "Japanese George Clooney takes American Ken Watanabe to get sushi") read by a chorus of almost 30 voices!

Ian Byers-Gamber / Machine Project


We closed out the night with a bang, or should I say, with a Kanye!!! Sayeed Joseph, a student from Liz Macy's gamelan class, brought in his 5 page, newly scored piece for Readers Chorus at 6:30pm the night of our performance. We had worked on a much shortened version (4 lines basically) of his idea 3 days earlier in class, but Sayeed was adamant about realizing his vision for a Readers Chorus piece consisting of a mashup of Old Kanye West lyrics with New Kanye West lyrics, aptly titled, "Old New Kanye Mashup." At 7:45pm, 15 minutes before the evening was to begin, he ran the score with the group. I mentioned to him that we could run the performance like a rehearsal and practice it in front of the audience...give them a glimpse of our "process." Without hesitating, Sayeed said, "No, I'd like to run it straight through like a proper performance." And so, with Liz Macy conducting at the helm, an hour later, at the end of the evening, we did just that. Tang Readers Chorus rocks!!!

Ian Byers-Gamber / Machine Project


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