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Originally Posted by rowuk  With film, you seem to be able to give atonality a different perspective. Maybe this is a venue worth investigating. Modern trumpet music with visual highlights?! |
Which kind of brings us back to the Trumpet Theater thread of a few weeks ago..... multimedia performance. It is happening all over the place, especially in new music circles. There are so many ways to incorporate the visual - either with a 'backdrop' or performer stage motion - any of which, when well done, can enhance the performance - and the audience ability to understand complex material.
I don't think it is cheating, or diminishing the music, to add visuals. (Opera has been doing that for nearly 400 years, and the Greeks were doing it 3000 years ago.)
I think the lines have always been blurred, but we are only recently becoming more receptive to letting that happen. Categories are artificial means for us to organize our thoughts and lives (and CD collections). We impose categories on objects, people, thoughts, but they all fall naturally into more than one category. WHen we stop looking for the lines, and focus on the possibilities....
What is the difference really among a play with music, an opera, a show, a song cycle with stage action, a trumpet solo with stage action, a trumpet solo with sets? It is all about drama (from the Greek - and possibly the Lithuanian as well - for "to do".)
There are lots of 'multimedia' performances going on in new music circles, and some of them in major concert venues - check out "The Tristan Project" that the LA Phil did in 2005, and which I think was done in Europe this year and will be done in NYC next season.