audience participation

A setting of the Methodist Liturgy

Four audience groups, four conductors.  composers note:

Music for Audience and Soloist dates from the mid-1970s. It was originally intended for a conference of and for gifted teenagers. These young people were the first “performers” (and also the first “audience!!”), at a session I led on the subject of experimental music – in particular, the overlap between music and theater, and the possibility of group improvisation within a framework of tight control. 

In this piece,  the audience is divided into four groups, each led by a separate conductor and each reading from a separate part containing four “cues.”  These cues can be activated (i.e. chosen by the conductor) in any order and at any time. On the surface this may seem like a recipe for chaos. But in fact Music for Audience and Soloist ˆ has a very limited vocabulary of only 16 musical-theatrical events (4 times 4), almost all of them related either by close similarity or sharp textural contrast. (Ideally,  the conductors will explore these relationships as the piece progresses.)