Dreaming of an Island - Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra

Date: February 17
City: Indianapolis
Venue: Indiana History Center – Basile Theatre

Event: Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra: Kirk Trevor, conducts the World premiere of “Dreaming of an Island” by Neil Leonard for orchestra, electronics and interactive video.

Program Notes

Dreaming of an Island revisits ideas that I first explored in video and installations with Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons. Our collaboration contribution spans 19 years and about 9 collaborative works. Many of these works are featured in Campos-Pons' retrospective show Everything is Separated by Water at IMA. Dreaming of an Island was commissioned by the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
 
My first works with Campos-Pons were filmscores, Rite of Initiation (1988) and Sacred Bath (1991). Since the beginning, my work with Campos-Pons has focused on the exploration of ancient cultural themes, and their impact on contemporary personal narrative. 

Both scores used themes from West African Yoruba music that Campos-Pons heard as a child in Cuba. My scores explored these melodies and rhythms and their connection to American pop and jazz music. (The experimental sounds of Jimi Hendrix and the Art Ensemble of Chicago were staples of my playlist at the time.) Dreaming of an Island draws on an even broader palette, but the basic goal is similar - to explore the ancient sounds as they resonate in the circles of 21st century concert music, electronic music and jazz.

The video projection for Dreaming of an Island is a montage created my myself and Magdalena Campos-Pons using a software system of our own design.

Link:
Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra