This Saturday the Serviço Educativo da Casa da Música in Porto, Portugal will present a premier performance of Rolf Gehlhaar‘s Viagem as part of their Ao Alcance de Todos (Within Everyone’s Reach) project. This project involves developing new musical instruments and interfaces tailored for the abilities and needs of differently-abled performers. The instrumentation for Viagem includes the robotic gamelan I mentioned last year, a large choir, and five soprano T-Sticks played primarily by blind performers. I have been in Porto observing some of the rehearsals — this is the first time the T-Sticks have been played by blind performers, and also the first time five have been used together at once. Mapping and synthesis for the T-Sticks for Viagem was created by Rui Penha.
Viagem | Ao Alcance de Todos
3 Abril 2010
21:00, Sala Suggia
Casa da Música, PortoInspirado no livro de José Saramago, A Viagem do Elefante, este espectáculo é um concerto encenado, com projecção de imagens e texto, que resulta do projecto Instrumentos para Todos, o qual visou a concepção de raiz de instrumentos musicais moldados às particularidades de cidadãos com necessidades especiais.
[…Google translated…] Inspired by the book by José Saramago, The Voyage of the Elephant, this show is a staged concert, with projected images and text, resulting from the project Instruments for All, which aimed to design the root of musical instruments tailored to the particularities of people with special needs.
The concert will be broadcast live at www.casadamusica.tv
Joseph Malloch 