Over the last week I got to put a piece up in the Prayer House at the festival Spring Harvest.
The piece is based on Duccio’s Triptych of the Crucifixion. I used the central panel as the basis of the piece.
The characters in this panel are voiced through scripture readings and music. The installation represented the picture by placing speakers in the respective spaces of the characters.
The angels (the speakers at the top) produce music in a simple generative way. The phrasing is based on J. S. Bach’s St. John’s Passion 27c which is the scene of Jesus speaking to his mother and the beloved disciple.
The bottom three speakers voice scriptures from the characters. The beloved disciple voices the prologue of John (John 1:1-14). Mary voices her hope that she sang in the Magnificat. (Luke 1: 46 – 55). Jesus utters the traditional ‘Seven Last Words’.
The voices used in the piece are from different age groups. Hearing these voices asks us various questions. Is the young faltering voice merely cute? Is the older, measure voice more authoritative? Do these voices reflect the way the bible is read or heard?
(The sound is not from in situ but from the original mixdown.)