A Little More

Food experiments have taken a bit of a spring slumber in my kitchen, but a lot of other interesting stuff has been shakin'. Given the name and spirit of the blog- also, whose going to stop me- I'm going to try rolling in what I've been up to outside of the kitchen. Not unlikely sushi.

The past week has provided a dare I say perfect opportunity to do this. Here in Austin, we're in the thick of the Fusebox Festival, a ten day party of boundary-pushing, interactive performance and visual art that gives the finger to genres and conventions (although at times, still writes them a 'do u like me' note folded into a seemingly impossible 7.5 pointed star). It's fun as hell, and I've had the pleasure of volunteering at several events.

... starting with Mozart Requiem Undead, an experiment, let's call it, spear-headed by the Golden Hornet Project. For this collaboration, ten composers from all over the map pounced upon Mozart's last work, the Requiem Mass, which he died before he could finish. Said composers filled in the blanks. For the performance, a string and brass section, several percussion set ups, a band, and keys joined a choir of 200 volunteer singers at the French Legation, a beautiful, sprawling outdoor venue in the downtown vicinity. People were climbing the walls to get in. I'm not exaggerating, I was standing guard- with selective efficacy- at the side gate.

To set the scene: the weather was perfect, the space was enchanting, and the performance knocked everyone's socks right off their tapping toes. I don't know how to talk about music in any technical or expert sense (is that a treble... clef?), the best I can come up with is this: The show was fucking awesome. The emotional swells that Mozart has such a mastery over came through, as did the fun that each composer clearly had with re-imagining their movement. The audience's anticipation of what surprises the next movement would bring seemed to consistently give way to delight. The effect of 200 voices- even untrained- singing all at once- shivers, y'all.

A lot of people have reviewed or commented on the show already, so I'll leave it at this: my boss was also there, a man old enough to be my dad, and certainly with different tastes and sensibilities than I. At work the next day, spills of laudatory adjectives burst forth as we rehashed our experiences, although making a coherent sentence seemed beyond our capabilities. We were geeking the fuck out about this shit. Golden Hornet Project, I have a cleverly folded note for you.