Practice at the Gardner

March 9: The practice goes public- Ana Prvacki: Performing Daily...

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:04:00 -0400

March 9: The practice goes public- Ana Prvacki: Performing Daily Practice at the Gardner Museum.

Video produced by SheridanWorks, 2012.

March 9: Performing Daily Practice Slide Show

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 10:10:00 -0400

Preparing in the Green Room

Preparing in the Green Room

Heading through the connector

Alex Babioan

Jamie Billings

Kerry Leva

Jamie Billings, TJ Usyian, Neil Leonard

Skyping with Ana

March 9: Performing Daily Practice Slide Show

Alex improvising by the Courtyard.

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 19:24:44 -0400

Alex improvising by the Courtyard.

March 8th and 9th: Alex Baboian

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 19:23:11 -0400

We had such beautiful weather both days of the performances. Walking to and from the museum was a treat in itself.

I couldn’t resist sitting and playing for a moment by the courtyard. The music feels almost like a duet between Isabella and I. It is such a pleasant experience to get to play regularly in such an imaginative creative space to begin with. When I normally practice I often struggle to come up with fresh ideas, but when I play in this space I find I cant help but explore new possibilities. Ideas bounce like reverb off antique walls. It is such a rare treat as a musician to be able to work in an environment where you can just play with musical ideas as if they were marionettes on a string.

I often feel unwelcome by museums. Something about most traditional museum galleries can be impersonal and unwelcoming even when the art is phenomenal, and I can’t imagine a project like this working. The Gardener lends itself to music somehow and I think this has been an exciting experience for the musicians as well as the patrons. I had several very engaging conversations with curious patrons who were enjoying the project as much as we were. I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in Isabella’s artistic vision.

March 8: Alex Baboian and amazing courtyard shadows

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 19:22:00 -0400

March 8: Alex Baboian and amazing courtyard shadows

March 8th & March 9th: Jamie Billings

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 16:14:00 -0400

March 8th was our first performance. We had only had a group of observers one other time, which was the class our young children who were viewing the indoor garden a few weeks prior. The museum had a totally different vibe: It was buzzing with excitement from people of all ages, and I was approached by a fair number of people, interesting in where we were from and how often we performed there. I traveled around the museum as much as possible to give respect to the tour guides and play at a respective volume. I spent some time in the Tapestry Room, and Lillia’s playing was so beautiful and bounced off the rooms, and it was great to see people relaxing on benches and just listening. I spent a lot of time on the balconies; it was really great to hear Kerry’s voice traveling, Neil’s soprano sax floating, Alex’s chords swirling, and TJ’s vocals giving a really cool low end to all of our higher instruments. I played a lot of Bach that day and practiced his “Little Fugue in G Minor” and his “Badinerie in B”. I was working a lot with tone, as well. Overall, I think we all felt very surprised at the amount of people at the museum — there were hundreds filing in and out and it was really great to chat with some people who were there for the arts. It was too bad that we weren’t able to see Ana, but hopefully we’ll all see her again in the future when she’s in town.

On March 9th, we all arrived at 11AM again, and saw a huge procession of people in line, waiting to get in. Everyone looked excited. I arrived in the new greenhouse and was brought upstairs to set up, and then myself and the others headed to the museum. The place was already filled, and the happiness and confusion on peoples’ faces was pretty great and amusing as we walked in. We all started playing and went to our desired location. I was switching a lot between floors again; I found myself on the 3rd quite a lot, but also on the 1st by the Spanish painting, which is my favorite room. A lot of really kind people came up to me and said we all sounded nice, and it was great that they enjoyed what they were hearing and we interested in Ana’s idea for this collaboration. I wandered around freely, hearing all of our sounds bouncing off the garden, and from above, I saw people looking up and listening. It was a really cool experience. This day was still very packed with people, and we were also filmed, so we had quite a larger audience. I generally practice alone, locked up in a practice room, so this experience helped get rid of some of the anxiety I feel about playing in front of people. It was such a great experience and I thank Ana, Tiffany, and Pieranna for having all of us and Neil for inviting me to come join on this cool experience.

March 9: Jamie Billings in the Spanish Cloister

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 16:14:00 -0400

March 9: Jamie Billings in the Spanish Cloister

March 8: TJ Usiyan in the Gothic Room

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 07:58:00 -0400

March 8: TJ Usiyan in the Gothic Room

March 8th & 9th: TJ Usiyan

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 07:57:07 -0400

That was quite a lot to process. Having taken so long to sort it all out, I will write about both days at once.

Thursday’s theme was ‘busy’. So much of my focus was on discerning how not to sing over tour guides or other performers and getting a feel for how traffic flowed in the space that it took most of an hour to finally accept both my constraints and my lack of constraints. I had assumed that I must not get ‘too loud’ and had spent time trying to figure out what ‘too loud’ was.

Reflecting, this piece sits between public performance and solitary practice. While I state that I placed constraints on myself, there was a palpable pressure coming from the musing patrons to find the ‘right’ level of sound. Stolen glances and startled expressions let me know that I was something of an intruder on many peoples experience. I was a little more at ease with intruding on friday and fought less to keep my voice low though I did avoid singing full voice when more than three or four people were in the same room as I. Proximity was rarely an issue except when singing above speaking loudness.

Perhaps forty or fifty minutes into thursdays performance, someone—patron or guide, I am not sure—asked when I would ‘start singing’ and stop with the ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’. Getting past the brusque nature of the comment, I wondered whether there was a dynamic being broken by the statement. Was this patron ‘audience’ or something else? I did not take the time to state that I was told to practice in the space and that ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ are the bulk of my practice. Should I have? Did I ‘owe’ that explanation? this led me to consider whether or not I would have received the same remark If I bore an external and, therefore visible, instrument. ‘Playing’ and instrument in a public space is lent an air of propriety by the clearly visible nature of the instrument. ‘Surely she is supposed to be doing that, otherwise they would not have allowed that instrument in’ is what I imaging the thinking to be. Singing has none of this obviousness or propriety without ‘performance’ which, for most people, is song.

Performing in the museum while patrons who did not know at all beforehand that there were performers in the space led me to also think about intrusion in another way. While the public was—in a sense—intruding on my practice, I expected that. I was forewarned. These patrons were not always given that warning. So I began to think of the culturally accepted idea of a ‘solitary and silent experience with each piece’ that we put forth as the understood museum experience. Physical and auditory space are claimed and not to be contested. Armed with the knowledge that I was supposed to be there, however, I had to contest that space. For me, that was the bulk of the piece. My performance was the attempt to, without prose, explain that each sound I made, song or scuffle, was a part of that days museum experience.

March 8: Slide Show

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 07:52:00 -0400

heading down

Neil Lenoard

Lillia Betz

Kerry Leva

Alex Baboian

TJ Usiyan

Neil Leonard

Jamie Billings

March 8: Slide Show

March 8: Ana Prvacki

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 15:51:00 -0400

I recently watched some footage of Glen Gould practicing, he did not need distraction and could sit still for hours, focused and present with the music and his eyes closed. There are great images of him at lake Simcoe, singing and wandering in nature. I like to think that if he could he would have taken the piano with him on his daily walks around the lake.

A girl could get a sunburn up here while singing! But the sound...

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 15:38:00 -0500

A girl could get a sunburn up here while singing! But the sound and the view from up here are so gorgeous, it’s worth it (plus, I was wearing sunscreen).

[photo: Kerry Leva]

11:30am - the sun is being a total creeper on the...

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 15:33:38 -0500

11:30am - the sun is being a total creeper on the plants.

[photo: Kerry Leva]

March 7: Ana Prvacki

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 23:33:00 -0500

When I was nine years old I met Ljubisa Jovanovic, a Yugoslav flutist. I was in awe of his sound and expression and I decided I would become a professional classical musician just like him. I started to practice daily and with great commitment. By the time I was 13 I was practicing at least 3 hours a day, really a minimum if one was to play anywhere except at home or at a wedding or a funeral. It was an ideal romantic situation, hours of solitary and isolated ephemeral practice. However I was restless and feeling isolated and lonely, I quickly developed distractions, looking out the window, watching movies with subtitles that I could have on mute and reading books while playing scales. I started wondering why only visual artists got to do their sketching in museums, one always sees artists with notepads and cameras at sights and monuments.

Should musicians be inspired only through their ears? What if we encouraged musicians to wonder? When we talk about blurring the boundaries between the arts what do we really mean? Museums often host concerts but they are rarely staged among the works on view and only occasionally relate to the exhibitions. Could museums designate certain hours when musicians could practice in the galleries? Could they wander through the institution, occasionally stopping and looking? Or even playing for several hours, days or months in front of a particular work, absorbing and meditating, playing and looking?

While doing my residency at the Gardner I was amazed to learn about the deep connections Isabella had with music and the extent to which she incorporated her love of music into the museum she was building. Some of these acts were subtle and integral, like installing a window harp in one of the galleries windows, others were about her commitment to support music in the community and organizing concerts. From her letters and collection one gets a clear sense that music was an essential part of her daily practice.

I can not imagine a more perfect environment for Performing Daily Practice than the Isabella Stewart Gardner, reading the entries I am thrilled to see how the musicians understood the project and made it their own. I can only hope Performing Daily practice becomes a common practice!

March 8 and 9: Performing Daily Practice goes Public!

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 12:28:00 -0500

Visitors are invited to come and explore the galleries and the different sounds echoing throughout the museum. Join Alex Baboian, Lillia Betz, Jamie Billings, Neil Leonard, Kerry Leva, and TJ Usiyan from Berklee’s Interdisciplinary Arts Institute as they wander the galleries between 11:30am and 1:30pm.

Ana Prvacki: Performing Daily Practice with Alex Baboian, Lillia...

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 12:04:00 -0500

Ana Prvacki: Performing Daily Practice

with Alex Baboian, Lillia Betz, Jamie Billings,Neil Leonard,Kerry Leva, Shea Rose

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Video: Michael Sheridan, 2012

February 22nd: Jamie Billings

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 15:53:00 -0500

Today was another AM practice session at 9AM, and we all met in the new and beautiful greenhouse. Once we got set up, we were brought once again to the museum. I still felt so surprised when we moved from the modern building to the historic museum. It was so incredible. I found myself warming up on the ground floor, and then found that I was mainly sticking to the 1st floor and second. I kept changing levels because of my curiosity of trying to see things I had never seen before in the day, but mostly because I liked how the sounds of my peers were traveling and bouncing all around, and wanted to play off of them. The tapestry room really inspired me, as did the other rooms on that floor. The liveliness of the museum in the day made me feel so much more energized. I really enjoyed starting off my day in there; there is nothing more special than starting the day doing what you love to do. I felt compelled to play my flute with different articulations and felt like playing a lot of staccato today. I liked the way they rang off of enough in rooms that had a lot of reverb and space!

I am really excited or our two upcoming performances in a few weeks! On the 15th, there was a group of children who came in during the morning and it was great to see them so excited to look around at the garden and listen to us play. I hope everyone is just as excited about the performance as I am! I can’t wait!

February 22: Shea Rose

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 16:54:00 -0500

WOW! I have to start off by saying it absolutely made a difference walking into the museum through the beautiful new addition. The greenhouse, the sun rays bursting through the glass, walking up the open stair case, watching the young visual artist in the green house draw flowers and plants. Just stunning. And to top it off as soon as we entered our sacred practice space (we entered on the the first floor in a different area than before), light spilled through places and spaces I had never seen before. It brought a vibrancy to the space that I had never felt before. For the first time, it felt habitable and I thought about Isabella Steward Gardner waking up in the mornings and marveling at the beauty of the pieces.

Our first few practices were as the day was ending the sun was going down so I never had a chance to experience the rooms and the floors of the museum lit up in this way.

So off I went, eager to experience the museum in this new way. I headed toward the Chapel where I always start my practice. As I walked down the Long Gallery the smell, lighting and artwork triggered my senses and my body began to remember the familiar environment. Immediately, I began to relax and humm. (This was a nice feeling compared to my last practice when I couldn’t relax at all.) My voice teacher describes humming, with a forward buzz and vibration in the face, as massaging the vocal cords. And today that’s just what my humm’s felt like.

By the time I reached the altar I was in a good state of mind to start my practice. I began stretching (head, neck, shoulders, legs). On of my favorite new stretches is the tongue stretch. I carry a lot of stress in and around my mouth and jaw and the tongue stretch also alleviates so much tension.

When I finished up my stretches I started scales and sirens. I decided to stay on the third floor for a large part of my practice. The sculptures and paintings appeared softer and less haunting so I wanted to take my time to revisit the pieces of work that inspired me to sing or practice a certain way. For example when I first came across Titian’s painting, it was breathtaking, intimidating even a bit scary. But in the morning light it looked more subtle and subdued, less ravaging, Looking back, our evening practices made the galleries, artwork, figures ambiguous, mystical and haunting.

After my scales I took a break to listen to what my fellow musicians were playing. To my surprise I heard a piano. It was such beautiful playing that I followed the sound until I entered the gallery where Lillia was playing piano. I loved the sound and what she looked like playing so I stopped for awhile to listen and watch.

Lillia’s playing inspired me to try some new minor scales as I headed down stairs still captivated by how different everything looked in the daylight. I decided to finish my practice near the garden listening to all the different sound pour into the courtyard and dancing in the sunlight.

February 22: Shea Rose

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 16:53:00 -0500

February 22: Shea Rose

February 22nd: Alex Baboian

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:23:00 -0500

I had difficulty concentrating for the first half of my practice today and spent most of my time wandering. I decided to start at the 3rd floor and work my way down. upon reviewing my notes I seem to have developed a routine of beginning my practices at one of the balconies overlooking the courtyard. I did this again today. After a while I hear a piano in the distance and investigate. Languid notes hang from the piano in the tapestry room like glowing light from old Chinese lanterns. The reverb here is phenomenal. Probably due to the tile floors and massive open space. It’s exciting to have this room available again. I spent more time here listening than playing.

I spend the second half of my practice in the Spanish Cloister on the 1st floor. Sergeant’s “El Jaleo” reminds me of the spirit of Isabella dancing through the corridors of her palace. I imagine I am the guitarist in the background of the painting, calling to her spirit with every stroke of the strings.

I love the way contrasting things are brought together in the collection. She arranged art the way a DJ might create a mix. Art is connected by feel or mood rather than period, artist, style, or even medium. Not far from the Spanish cloister is what is left of the Chinese room. Old Buddhist bells remind me of my time in Japan 2 years ago. I begin playing the traditional song, “Sakura Sakura” without noticing, modulating the melody through different keys the way the collection modulates through different worlds.