Dallas-based performance group Verdigris Ensemble has released its upcoming Big Bang concert series which will mark the opening of the ensemble’s 5th anniversary season. Big Bang, with performances in early September, combines the old with the new in an exciting exploration of the cosmos and the human experience. In a fresh collision of technology, music, and visual arts, the sixteen voices of Verdigris will present two astral-inspired compositions alongside original artwork generated by artificial intelligence and designed by renowned painter and roboticist Pindar van Arman.
Big Bang will feature two compelling works by contemporary American composers Kile Smith and Michael Harrison, each a unique imagining of the stories humankind has curated through our study of and exploration into the final frontier. Additionally, these musical elements will serve as source material to be reinterpreted by AI into works of art with programming designed and implemented by van Arman.
“In exploring this through concert and performance art,” says Verdigris artistic director Sam Brukhman, “we are literally colliding the oldest theories with the newest technologies to create a new, big bang of culture: art that is collaboratively created between humans (human connection) and artificial intelligence (mathematical and quantum mechanics).”
In Consolation of Apollo (2014), Smith sets text from transcriptions of the famous 1968 Christmas Eve broadcast by the crew of Apollo 8, interspersed with selections from The Consolation of Philosophy by philosopher, Christian apologist, and translator of Aristotle, Boethius. That 1968 Christmas Eve television broadcast famously (and in some quarters, infamously) included the recitation by the astronauts of the first ten verses of Genesis, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth….” This text is mixed together with the prosaic chatter among the crew and Houston as they position the craft for what has become the iconic photos of Earth.
Silence and space are important in Just Constellations – calling the listener back to the material reality of the performance. As the vocalists trade long, sustained notes, they pause periodically to breathe. Sometimes this absence is covered by the sounds of the other vocalists, but at other times the vocalists rest together, and the reverberations of their tones fade naturally as they move away from the singers, leaving a deep, settled silence in their wake.
Verdigris Ensemble’s performance will be augmented live by van Arman’s AI-generated artwork, resulting in thematically relevant visual compliments. “Big Bang” will also include Verdigris’ announcement of what audiences can expect for the rest of the ensemble’s 2022/23 season.
Performances of Big Bang will begin with a two-night run at the Moody Performance Hall in the Dallas Arts District on September 9th and 10th, 2022, followed by a performance at the First Presbyterian Church of Dallas on September 11th, 2022. All concerts will be at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets may be purchased at verdigrismusic.org, with discount pricing available for students, their families, and members of First Presbyterian Church of Dallas. Prices range from $5-$30.