Echoes of Two Voices I’ve been in conversation with G. Douglas Barrett’s Two Voices (2008) for several years. The first realization of the score I performed was with Doug, at The Wulf in Los Angeles in December 2008. The action I chose for this realization, which Doug and I re‐performed about a year and a half later at Squeaky Wheel in Buffalo, was sitting on a chair. We stood in front of a pair of folding chairs, sitting down and standing up according to the score’s directions. The first solo realization I performed was in September 2009 at the Experimental Music Series at the Ontological‐Hysteric Theater in NYC. For this realization, I poured water from two identical glass pitchers into pairs of glass vessels of various shapes and sizes. Between movements, I changed one or both receiving vessels, thereby modifying the sound produced by the water. I performed the score again as a solo at Presents Gallery in Brooklyn in February 2011. In this realization each of the three movements was markedly distinct from the other two, following a trajectory that went, roughly speaking, from sound, to action, to space. In the first movement I used two small transistor radios tuned on different, random frequencies. In the second, I used the movement of my arms rising sideways to about 140°. In the third, I held a 15x24½ Masonite board in front of my chest and, holding it by the sides, extended my arms forward, outlining a total of seven different volumes in accordance with the nine “systems” in the movement.∗ I had been thinking for a while of a realization in which pairs of performers (different for each movement) realize the score by entering a room, sitting on a couch, standing up and leaving. What I found compelling about this realization was the expectation that each of the systems would acquire, in the viewer’s imagination, a loose yet distinct narrative character (think of two people arriving separately and leaving together, or arriving together and leaving separately). Moreover, depending on the performers’ age, gender, and general appearance, the same system would take on different narrative overtones. ∗
The following two pairs of systems outline identical volumes: _____ ________ ________ _____ _____ and ________ ________ and _____ On December 12 2014 I shot a video realization of the score along these lines. The realization was performed by Amber Christiansen, William Ellis, Leslie Supnet, and Tess Takahashi. The video was shot on VHS and transferred to digital format and is currently in the post‐production stage. Going back to Two Voices nearly four years after my last encounter with the score prompted a new series of ideas, which were percolating in my head as I was trying to respond to Travis Just’s invitation to contribute to EMY. I wanted to contribute something that, rather than documenting the realization of a score, was itself the realization of a score. I came up with two. I look at these two realizations now and I see that they can both also be read as scores reverberating from the original one on which they are based. Echoes of Two Voices. Francesco Gagliardi Toronto, December 2014 I II They enter the room, they sit down. After a while, they stand up and leave.
They enter the room, they sit down. After a while, she stands up and leaves;
he remains sitting. After a while, he stands up and leaves.
They enter the room, they sit down. After a while, he stands up and leaves;
she remains sitting. After a while, she stands up and leaves.
He enters the room, he sits down. She enters and sits next to him. After a
while, they stand up and leave.
He enters the room, he sits down. She enters, sits down, stands up again and
leaves. After a while, he stands up and leaves.
He enters the room, he sits down. She enters and sits next to him. He stands
up and leaves. She remains sitting. After a while, she stands up and leaves.
She enters the room and sits down. He enters, sits next to her. After a while,
they stand up and leave.
She enters the room, she sits down. He enters, sits down. She stands up and
leaves. After a while, he stands up and leaves.
She enters the room, she sits down. He enters and sits next to her. After a
while, he stands up and leaves; she remains sitting. After a while, she leaves
too.
Emma in a red dress: she enters the room and sits down. A pause. Amelia
enters: black pants. She sits down, stands up and leaves. A pause. Emma
leaves.
Emma enters: red dress. She sits down. Amelia enters: black pants. She sits
down. A pause. Red dress, Emma, leaves. A pause. Amelia leaves.
Emma, red dress. enters. She sits down. Amelia, black pants, enters, sits
down. A pause. They stand up and leave.
Amelia enters: black pants (leather). She sits down. Emma enters: red dress.
She sits next to her. Exit Amelia. Then: Exit Emma.
Amelia enters, sits down. Enter Emma (red dress), sits down. A pause. Emma
stands up and leaves. Amelia (black leather) follows.
Enter Amelia: black leather (pants). She sits down. Enter Emma, red dress,
and sits down. A pause. They stand up and leave.
Enter Emma and Amelia (red dress, black pants). They sit down. A pause.
Amelia stands up and leaves. Then Emma.
Enter Emma and Amelia. They sit down: red dress black pants (leather).
Emma stands up and leaves. A pause. Amelia (black pants) leaves.
Red dress, black pants: Emma and Amelia. They enter, sit down, stand up
and leave.
Enter Jake and J D. They sit.
Exeunt Jake and J D.
Enter Jake and J D. They sit.
Exit Jake.
Exit J D.
Enter Jake and J D. They sit.
Exit J D.
Exit Jake.
Enter J D. Sits.
Enter Jake. Sits.
Exeunt Jake and J D.
Enter J D. Sits.
Enter Jake. Sits.
Exit Jake.
Exit J D.
Enter J D. Sits.
Enter Jake. Sits.
Exit J D.
Exit Jake.
Enter Jake. Sits.
Enter J D. Sits.
Exeunt Jake and J D.
Enter Jake. Sits.
Enter J D. Sits.
Exit Jake.
Exit J D.
Enter Jake. Sits.
Enter J D. Sits.
Exit J D.
Exit Jake.