WHSAD Junior reporter, Alison Sanchez, wrote this narrative. An accompanying narrative from WHSAD Junior, Mia Brito, follows.
On Friday, October 3rd, Junior English teacher and select students attended ‘11,000 Strings’ at Park Avenue Armory, a long term partner of WHSAD that has provided students with numerous opportunities to engage and learn about the arts and become involved with the community. This trip centered around students who play or have had some experience playing an instrument in the past due to the fact that the trip centered majorly around music and the unique use of instruments.
‘11,000 Strings’ is a beautiful performance that experiments with various sounds and emotions. It’s a piece that is made to make the people in the audience wonder and feel. Oftentimes performances are created with a single or main idea in mind, limiting a lot of what an audience might interpret or explore. ‘11,000 strings’ does the opposite and encourages the audience to relate to their own experiences and journey through life. The maverick composer of ‘11,000 Strings’ , Georg Friedrich Haas, wished to further expand his sonic palette and truly develop something completely different and unique to him.
Set in the Wade Thompson Drill Hall, a 55,000 square feet open space with iron arches that are spread throughout and reach to the ceiling, ‘11,000 Strings’ had the perfect venue to showcase its nuances. Stepping into the room, one notices how much space is truly there and the amount of room musicians have to work with. The room completely captures you and leaves you in awe by its sheer size. The audience sat in the middle of the room, surrounded by a chamber orchestra containing 50 micro-tuned pianos all made to sound completely different from each other, paired with 25 phenomenal musicians from the Klangforum Wien orchestra. These numbers allowed for an even and stable distribution of musicians to pianos which was something completely coincidental but ultimately became a very structural part of the performance.
With all these instruments together they were able to create a unique sound, using a total of 11,000 strings. This performance was a truly unforgettable experience because of the constant change in melody and tone which created a sense of suspension within the audience, and as to what could possibly follow. The performance began with a slow and tender sound, starting very light and almost welcoming creating a sense of security. However, that quickly changed after a few notes where the music suddenly transitioned into a much more loud and chilling melody. The sound completely overtook and surrounded you, making it all the more powerful and surprising. The change was something completely unexpected and was made to catch you off guard.
The music shifted from one sound to another at a completely unpredictable pace. There were moments where the music would slow down and quiet down but never fully stop, every pause intentional. There would be times where only a single key could be heard among the silence, creating a slow and soft melody, before erupting into a powerful explosion of sound and rhythm once again. This performance relied heavily upon its element of surprise and loud melodies. All these sounds together made the music come to life and create this feeling of restlessness. Every deliberate pause left the audience wanting more.
‘I loved the lighting and atmosphere. The contrast of the blue lights against the complete darkness of the room created this beautiful view and something completely unique. It’s common to be seated away from the performers so it was surprising when we were instead seated with the performers surrounding us.’ These were some aspects of the performance that really stood out to WHSAD junior, Elizabeth Cruz.
The amount of songs and melodies that were performed all told different stories, and they all meant different things to different people. To some, the performance felt eerie and almost scary because of its loud and powerful sounds that almost came at you and almost surprised you when they started because they would often play after a moment of tender and quiet melodies.
At the beginning of this performance I felt lost, I had tried my best to keep note of everything I heard which was difficult with the constant change in tone and melody. I wanted to be able to understand the performance in order to enjoy it more but that felt almost impossible. Coming into these performances, one might try to come up with a single story to try and understand why the melodies sound a certain way or why they are being played in the order they are but that is something that really takes away from the goal of this artwork. At some point of the performance I gave up on trying to document every single change in the sound and began to just simply listen to the music. I noticed that once I did this I began to feel more comfortable and relaxed with the music around me. It was still loud and violent at some points but it didn’t feel eerie or scary, just sudden. Over time I learned to embrace the feeling of uncertainty and began to enjoy the feeling of suspension and what could possibly follow.
The performance lasted approximately an hour, without any intermission. Once the performance had concluded the artists involved were brought to the stage to speak about the piece and their creative process and respond to student questions. During this discussion a central theme that was discussed was the fact that the piece, 11,000 strings, was a work that was meant to inspire one to look past “understanding” and push people to explore and to be okay with not knowing. This wasn’t a piece made to be categorized and labeled, it worked to challenge the audience and evoke curiosity rather than simply looking for the ‘right’ answer.
For many, including myself, this idea was difficult to fully accept. The idea of and embracing the uncertainty and unfamiliarity of this piece while not having a clear understanding of something is hard to grasp, especially since we are often taught to analyze and interpret everything around us so much so that there is a sense of discomfort that comes along when we don’t have that. Yet despite that feeling of discomfort many students still found a sense of comfort in its ambiguity and the fact that there wasn’t a ‘right’ nor a ‘wrong’ answer. This idea allowed for a more open and welcoming discussion of ideas and what it could’ve possibly been trying to accomplish.
‘11,000’ strings was created with the goal of creating a space where people could visualize and relate to their own experiences through music that surrounds the viewer. The performance creates a space where there is no ‘right’ nor ‘wrong’ and welcomes the opportunity to explore and mess around with new ideas and concepts. In the end, rhere is no clear way to look at ‘11,000 Strings’, which is the beauty of the performance.
-Alison Sanchez
‘11,000 Strings’ is a very unique and immersive show. Personally, I was already very excited to be back at Park Avenue Armory watching a show with an orchestra. The overall experience was one of a kind; you got to hear sounds that you might have never heard before, as well as sounds that may have sounded familiar. For me, at some points of the show, I was in awe of the many sounds that felt so familiar. Some parts sounded like thunderstorms with light rain, and others pure chaos, but it was all spectacular. There were pianos, cellos, violins, violas, flutes, drums, and trombones. This array of instruments had me very enthusiastic as a musician myself, specifically the trombone, since it belongs to the same family as the instrument I play, the trumpet.
As a trumpet player and just a musician in general, I really enjoyed this show just like I do with any orchestra or musical piece. Although some people may not have particularly liked this show, I felt a passionate connection to it. The concept of the show was exciting as well and a bit hard to explain, but the point was that there were 50 pianos in a circle, they were all tuned slightly from each other, and when played together, it created this ominous sound which was then bent by the piano players to create what was the music.
My old music teacher once told me that the people in this world who play music have a superpower. We can understand and resonate, and feel music and all art. We have this ability to appreciate art in ways that non-musicians may not necessarily; and that is what I was feeling. I was able to really soak in all of the instruments and then sort of zoom out and combine them. This show was truly touching, and I would love to see it again.
I was also very moved by the composer and his story of how he got the idea for this piece. He was visiting China and went to a piano factory. In this factory, he came across a room with robots that were tuning pianos. This inspired him through the sound he heard to compose this piece and share his work with the world. This is something that I found myself inspired by because it was a story about how one trip and an idea came to be something so extraordinary and so different. ‘11,000 Strings’ is by far one of my favorite shows that I have seen at Park Avenue Armory, and I am very pleased with my experience. It was amazing.
-Mia Brito