In 1640, the Bay Psalm Book was printed in Cambridge, MA, the first book to be published in British North America. Gathering Note is a public art performance work that uses the Bay Book as a source in creating a graphical score for church choirs and other community voices. The score provides an intentionally open set of cues that allow the shape of the work to emerge from a balance between instructions and each performer’s independent choices, guided by their attention to their surroundings. Gathering Note celebrates a very American sense of unity in diversity: how disparate voices become cohesive wholes, growing organically from disparate abilities, approaches, and an ambivalence to hierarchical structures.
Curated by Dina Deitsch and commissioned by the Cambridge Arts Council for the public art series Common Exchange.
Curated by Dina Deitsch and commissioned by the Cambridge Arts Council for the public art series Common Exchange.
Gathering Note
2017
composition for voices
public art performance
approx. 45 minutes
