PLAY with ESPRIT

"Unease about speed is the adrenaline dispenser in video games, when you're always one shot, or one flick of the joystick away from catastrophe. Play might leave listeners with the uncomfortable feeling that they are not listening fast enough.” So writes Justin Davidson Follow commenting on the explosion in full freak-out mode that comes with the downbeat of Play by Andrew Norman, one of Esprit’s guest composers on November 15th at Koerner Hall.

Play, a 45-minute symphony based on the multiple meanings of the work's title, is organized in unusual ways. Non-linear forms like those encountered in video games serve as important sources of inspiration.

Regarding Play's reference to video games, Norman says, "Play for me has this reference to video games. I’m not a huge gamer, but there is something about the way games are structured and the way narratives are structured in a game which is very appealing to me as I think about form and music. Oftentimes there’s a non-linear way through a game. How to convey a story arc, or a general narrative over a span of time, but one that can loop back on itself, and that can take a circuitous route through the material.

We’re very adept at processing these things from the ways we watch movies and TV these days. I mean, non-linear story telling seems to be almost a cliché in some of our other time-based mediums; the whole flash back, or flash forward, or cut to a parallel universe kind of thing. Why not in orchestra music?"

There is a strong theatrical aspect to the piece. Norman wants the audience to "see" the piece being performed live because he has written instructions in the score for musicians to behave in special (sometimes strange) ways. "Players often freeze in place, mid-breath and bow-stroke, waiting to be turned on again by the flick of a percussive switch."

The piece is, in part, a work of wordless theatre. Play involves human interactions, playing of instruments – play in child-like ways, as well as in sinister modes of control – "being played”.

In creating the piece the composer gave thought to what the performers are doing on stage and their relationships in the hall: The conductor’s arm-waving causes things to happen; the composer controls the conductor's arm waving – both cause the players to do things. All this causes the audience to have certain feelings. The chain of cause and effect is foremost in Norman's mind.

PLAY with ESPRIT Sunday November 15th!

– Alex