[ad_1]
It’s a mix of controlled and chaotic, planned and unplanned, as the sound of the ship’s whistle meets the wind, fog and paved streets of downtown St. John’s; a unique symphony that returns to the city once again.
The Port St Johns Symphony Orchestra, a unique and traditional ensemble currently celebrating its 40th anniversary, returns as part of the biennial Sound Symposium Festival.
Every day for the next week at 12:30 sharp, volunteers boarded boats in the harbor and did their best to blast music — and any other sounds that might come to the ears of the audience — from the boat’s speakers.
“For some people, it’s their first time experiencing the environment as a musical element,” said Gayle Young, who has composed three pieces for the Harbor Symphony since its founding in 1983.
Each piece of music is composed using a unique system. The monotonous horn sound has no time signature or treble clef, but is marked by dots on a grid, with each square representing one second.
“It gives non-musicians the opportunity to be part of something that is really musical,” said Mahina Graham-Laidlaw, a volunteer at the festival since 2016.
On Wednesday, she divided the three parts among other volunteers — in some cases, one person counted the seconds and a designated partner actually blew the horn — and led them in a rehearsal along Harbor Drive, where volunteers counted the notes and imitated the sound of a ship’s horn.
For Young, a symphony doesn’t begin and end with a formal arrangement. She imagines it as a flow: ship numbers blending with the sounds of everyday life, building to a crescendo and then tapering off — but never quite disappearing.
Sometimes the ships don’t arrive as planned; sometimes the horns don’t sound. It’s all part of the Harbor Symphony experience.
“All of these variables are out of our control,” Graham-Laidlaw said. “This improvisation, allowing things to be where they are and creating from those places.”
Love it or hate it — and the symphony does have its fair share of bullshit — if you live or work in downtown St. John’s, it’s nearly impossible to escape the Harbor Symphony Orchestra. The blast of ship horns is enough to quiet conversation and draw people to their windows.
“People get involved in it, and even if they like it, they don’t enjoy it. They’re subject to it,” Graham-Laidlaw said.
It has invited countless comparisons – maybe it sounds like the cry of a whale, or the roar of a lion.
Maybe it’s just noise.
“Oh my god, come on, five minutes a day. Give us a break,” added volunteer Mike Furlong, whose record of service dates back to the Harbor Symphony’s early days.
He played the horn a few times himself, but said he preferred to compose music — so he could hear the entire piece from beginning to end.
“I think it says a lot about why we live here. It tells about the ships. These ships have been sailing here for 500 years, and Newfoundlanders lived off the sea.”
[ad_2]
Source link
