Collaborative sound, image project based on local, Japanese children's contributions

Music improvised by schoolchildren from Japan and Lewiston forms the basis of a collaborative sound and image project to be performed at Bates College at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 10, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

Listening In, Looking Out is a project undertaken by Hiroya Miura, a composer who directs the
Bates College Orchestra, in collaboration with Bates students, intermedia artist Peter Bussigel and percussionist Masaki Endo, as well as the children, whose recorded musical efforts form part of the soundscape.

Endo will perform during the presentation of the piece. For more information, please contact
207-786-6135 or this olinarts@bates.edu.

The composition of the piece is based on a game, often associated with the Dadaist art movement of the early 20th century, in which each member of a team adds a piece, in turn, to the creation of a work. For Listening In, Looking Out, Miura, Bussigel and the Bates students conducted improvisation workshops this year with children in Sendai, Japan (where a version of the piece was premiered in 2009), and at Lewiston’s Farwell Elementary School.

The workshops are designed to get children to improvise simple musical instruments from everyday objects. Recordings from the workshops were edited by the Bates students to create a sound and image composition.

The Bates students taking part are two juniors, Abigael Merson of Falmouth and Jack Schneider of Tacoma Park, Md.; and Alex Koster, a senior from Pound Ridge, N.Y.