Here are a few recollections from travels through Providence and Boston last weekend with LCollective. In Providence we played at 150 Sutton St with Laura Cetilia, and Teodora Stepancic gave a solo concert at the RISD Museum. In Boston we played alongside Ordinary Affects, a Boston-based ensemble, at the MIT Bookstore in Cambridge.
1. I am sitting in the MIT bookshop at the edge of a semi-circle. James Falzone to my left, Luke Martin across the circle from me, Laura Cetilia and Morgan Evans-Weiler in between. I am listening to several low tones in the room. I can tell when Luke is playing but I cannot tell when Luke is not playing.
2. I am slowly walking around a room in the RISD Museum, looking at large portraits of regally painted families, wealthy women standing stoically, pastoral landscapes featuring some sort of communal activity, often by a river. In each painting there is some small section of the canvas containing a glimpse of sky and clouds. Occasional passages of chords-- each chord truncated, leaving a single tone to decay naturally-- sound from the piano in the middle of the room as Teodora Stepancic plays from Andre Cormier's "Zwischen den Wolken."
3. I am playing Laura's trumpet and cello duet during rehearsal. It is early enough that the gallery we are sitting in is still filled with afternoon light. I feel immersed in the sound of the field recording behind me and the compound 5th between low cello and high muted trumpet. I wonder about how Erik Satie's late night walks home would have been different had he lived closer to the sea.
