“Could I ask you to explain the music of heaven for me?”
“Sounding the ten thousand things differently, so each becomes itself according to itself alone—who could make such music?” — Chuang Tzu (369-286 BCE)
Music of the Heavens is a multicultural creation of live music and multimedia animated visuals that tell ancient astrological stories, exploring the stories and belief systems that make up the diverse fabric of Canadian and Indigenous society.
Inspired by ancient legends of the stars in Chinese, Greek, and First Nations cultures, this project features original interdisciplinary compositions of cross-cultural animated visuals and music. The team of visual artists, animators, music composers, instrumentalists, and software developers has come together to create an immersive audio-visual inter-arts performance. This is an exploration of the cultural heritages of the participating artists, and the meeting of cultures in our Canadian multi-cultural environment.
The artists re-interpret the cosmological stories and oral histories from their own cultural heritages — Greek, Chinese, and the Indigenous’ Haudenosaunee culture, and explore the meeting of cultures in their collaborative process with community members, where unique stars signifying individuals’ heritage were made. Each story is connected to a season, and characters from the heavenly world travel through time and space as the night unfolds, highlighting different cultural beliefs.
Music of the Heavens is a multimedia presentation performed by projecting in real-time animated images of mythological stories set to world-class musical accompaniment – not unlike a DJ creating their own unique live music set. The animated stories are told through ancient astrological characters representing the four seasons, and highlight different cultural beliefs of many Canadian citizens.
This project marries ancient myths and philosophies with our contemporary multicultural reality, new forms of visual and musical expression and digital technology. It encourages the public to look at old traditions from a fresh angle. At the same time, it promotes the awareness of both Indigenous, Asian, and Greek influences in contemporary Canadian arts and the shared heritages as well as connections between different cultures.
Music of the Heavens multimedia performance will take place at the Norman Rothstein Theatre in Vancouver, November 23rd, 8:00PM and the Mary Irwin Theatre; Rotary Centre for the Arts in Kelowna, November 30th of 2017.