Black Angels by George Crumb performed by The Rolston String Quartet with live film mix by Lester Alfonso — in Rehearsal, Toronto 2018, Exclusive Clips
Day 33 of 360 videos from my archive. Today’s videos are iPhone artifacts that came from May 2018 when I was asked to perform a live film mix based on something originally conceived and created by Peter Mettler for the Art of Time Ensemble and the Rolston String Quartet’s performance of George Crumb’s Black Angels.
It’s a great honour to be asked to fill Peter’s shoes again. I’ll be performing with The Rolston String Quartet, First Prize winners of the Banff International String Quartet Competition, again in Kingston, Ontario on February 4, 2020 with their powerful rendition of Black Angels.
“Black Angels” refers to the black helicopters used during the Vietnam war.
Black Angels, subtitled “Thirteen Images from the Dark Land”, is a work for “electric string quartet” by the American avant-garde composer George Crumb. It was composed over the course of a year and is dated “Friday the Thirteenth, March 1970 (in tempore belli)” as written on the score. The Latin phrase in tempore belli, in time of war, written into the score by Crumb is a reference to the Vietnam War taking place at the time when Black Angels was composed… The piece is notable for its unconventional instrumentation, which calls for electric string instruments, crystal glasses, and two suspended tam-tam gongs.
Wikipedia
It’s a tricky challenge to use images of war for a video art piece. I hope to be able to post a video of the entire performance soon.
Thanks to Angel Hamilton who shot two of these videos of us in rehearsal. The first clip was taken from my station just off stage.
Music by Evergreen Gamelan Ensemble, Murcof, Marc Weiser, Martin Schutz, Adam Marshall, Tom Kuo, Telefunk Sound System
At the Toronto International Film Festival, Berkeley Church, Toronto, 2006
My apprenticeship with Peter Mettler began in 2006 when he asked me to help him put together Elsewhere his “live cinema event” for the Toronto International Film Festival.
More soon. — LA
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