Learning to See

Work In Progress

Project Leaders:

Klaus Engel – machine designer
Dave Klassen – percussion
Kathryn Ladano – bass clarinet
Isabella Stefanescu – visual artist
with Margaret Bárdos – mezzo-soprano

Learning to See is a durational performance for bass clarinet, percussion and euphonopen. Each of the 23 movements highlighting a certain type of musical gesture – the movement a person has to make in order to produce sound from an instrument. Learning to See encourages the audience to think of music as both sound and a visual form of expression and communication.

The inspiration of this piece is Drawing Techniques a book by Peter Jenny professor of architecture in Zurich, which deals with 22 techniques, to which we added the 23’rd – erasure. The visual artist works her way through each of the 23 drawing techniques, using the euphonopen, which manipulates the voice of the mezzo-soprano, while the bass clarinet and percussion interpret the vocabulary of each drawing technique description as a structured improvisation.

Technique No. 1 – Gesticulate

Technique No. 8 – Form

This project was funded by a grant from the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund