Chamber Elements (2012)
Chamber Elements, for mobile brass octet and mobile choir in the National Gallery of Canada, was performed on 4 and 5 August, 2012, as part of the Ottawa Chamberfest by Nicholas Dyson, Michael Henley, Jim Lewis, Craig Pedersen, Nicole Rampersaud (trumpets); Mark Ferguson, Ryan Purchase, Michael Schultz (trombones); a thirty-member Element Choir Project under the direction of Christine Duncan.
Chamber Elements is designed to activate the gorgeous Moshe Safdie architecture housing the National Gallery’s permanent collection. On the second floor, in a manner related to AGOrienteering, trumpeters and trombonists follow separate-but-intersecting routes through the galleries and around the Water and Garden Courts, playing all the while. Meanwhile, thirty singers from the Element Choir Project, conducted by Christine Duncan, accompany the brass from the first floor of the Courts. At a key point in the performance, in the Garden Court, there is a solo by Jim Lewis, playing from the balcony, with the choir accompanying him from below.
Nicholas Loess made this video of Chamber Elements.
Some other video of the performance as well as an interview can be seen here.
Chamber Elements is dedicated to Barnett Newman.
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