It was a busy week for Tyshawn Sorey this previous spring on the Large Ears Pageant in Knoxville, Tenn., filled with a mixture of collaborative tasks, public talks and performances. We had a tough time becoming this dialog into his schedule, however as quickly as we sat down collectively within the huge open house of the deserted railroad depot that had turn out to be NPR’s makeshift recording studio, all the frenzy and noise appeared to vanish, and our dialog turned as a substitute to the facility of house and silence.
One of many items Tyshawn introduced at Large Ears was Monochromatic Mild (Afterlife), impressed by the Rothko Chapel in Houston and by Morton Feldman’s 1971 rating that commemorated the chapel’s opening. That launch occasion was shrouded in darkness: one 12 months earlier, Mark Rothko had killed himself after finishing the suite of 14 massive work that cowl the chapel’s partitions. The darkness of this origin story is preserved in Rothko’s color-field work, so darkish they seem black at first. However actually, these work are alternatives for the revelation of sunshine. As you stick with them within the house, as rays of solar shift via the chapel’s skylight, the canvases pull you into an consciousness of practically undetectable modifications of sunshine and shade. Time loses its regular contours. House takes on new that means.
To attain a distillation of that depth in music means letting go of conventions and constructions. For Tyshawn, that’s widespread apply. As a drummer, trombonist and pianist, in addition to a composer, he strikes fluidly via each improvisational and notated music, centering the exploration of texture and time in a prolific physique of labor that ranges from solo piano to symphony orchestra. Like Rothko’s chapel work, Tyshawn’s musical canvas leaves room for the listener’s expertise, evolving slowly via the subtlest shifts of shade and light-weight.
The evening earlier than my dialog with Tyshawn, I had dinner with bass-baritone Davóne Tines, one of many lead artists in Monochromatic Mild (Afterlife). He met me in between his afternoon and night performances of the practically hour-long piece, an immersive invocation that requires unbreaking focus from the musicians as they navigate its wandering trajectory. However Davóne did not appear exhausted, simply hungry. “I really feel actually chill,” he advised me. “It is the silences, the areas — these are locations of reflection and relaxation.”
Reflection and relaxation, and maybe launch and reduction. Simply as the acute darkness of Rothko’s canvases lets mild discover its method, Tyshawn Sorey’s silences enable for house and time, and blessed respite from the velocity and noise of this fast-moving world.
