"Ring of Bone" is a new piece written by New York City composer David Harris and Madison visual artist Jeremy Wineberg. The composition, in three scenes for chorus and sound artist, is based on separate dream sequences experienced by Jeremy and David, who are both vivid and lucid dreamers.
The piece also uses a poem that fits perfectly with another aspect of the project, synesthesia. Lew Welch's [I Saw Myself] compellingly describes a dreamlike state of the mind that drifts from sight to sound. The collaboration that Jeremy and David set out to achieve is a bridge between sight and sound. Paintings by Jeremy describe the visual experience of two dreams, to be translated by the singers and sound artist into tones through improvisation and interpretation. Some notes are prescribed, but most of the decisions are left to the individual vocal artists to draw from the images.
These paintings have been set to video, and were projected behind the chorus for it's debut at Rockefeller University's Caspary Auditorium in New York City on May 15th, 2010. The work was performed by the C4 Ensemble (c4ensemble.org/) under the direction of conductor Chris Baum. It also featured New York sound artist Stephan Moore (oddnoise.com/), who used remastered samples from the choir to create a broad and multi-dimensional improvisational palette.
This video layers the original projection with a recording of the debut performance.
