video

"The Star Theatre" uses digitally processed historic footage of early 20th-century theatrical performances, as well as photographs of old theaters and stages, within a contemplative work for clarinet, piano and electronic sound.

Program note:
This piece uses processed footage and sound from various storms and lulls captured
during the 2004-05 winter season. These manipulated shots form the backbone of the
DVD-accompaniment part, though natural weather sounds are increasingly obscured by
music inspired by an old Nina Simone song. The contrast between these elements is
given a narrative shape in the piano part, which pits slow-moving sostenuto-pedal style
harmonies against sections of two-part rhythmically active polyphony. The sections of
long resonating piano chords are also set apart by the use of a short occasional poem by
Marianne Moore which appears on the screen during these parts of the piece.

This work features live performers “playing along” with a DVD of an accompaniment movie, so that visuals will be projected above or to the side of the performers, and the soundtrack of the DVD will be heard over a stereo playback system.

The performers, who are reading a performance score, should follow the cuing directions in the score in order to maintain synchronization with the DVD playback. There are also “stopwatch” timings in the score, so if one of the performers starts a stopwatch at the beginning of the DVD, these timings can be used as a backup system for synchronization.

Depending on the size of the hall, amplification may be necessary for the performers, through traditional microphones and speakers. These may be mixed in with the DVD sound, but in larger sound systems, with diffusion, may be kept separate from the DVD playback.

The accompaniment movie was produced in Final Cut, with sounds being processed beforehand in Reason and Soundhack software. Processing of the video elements, particularly in terms of speed, was done directly in Final Cut.