Mask Your Sonic Story

2016

Composer:
Reiko Yamada

Librettist:
Reiko Yamada

Performance forces:
9 female singers — percussion ensemble

Length:
1:00

Languages:

Notes:
Mask Your Sonic Story, an experimental opera, was commissioned by the Lorelei Ensemble and the Boston Percussion Group, with the support of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.   Rather than the explicit storyline of traditional operas, Mask Your Sonic Story offers its audience a collection of hints in the shape of words, onomatopoeia, movements, and costumes, which are left open to interpretation. Audience members can move freely around the set to follow certain characters during the performance, which allows them to hear the “secret song”, prevents them from hearing the songs of others, and forces them to interpret what they see and hear through their individual subjectivity. As a result, Mask Your Sonic Story creates as many narratives as there are audience members.