The Life of Instruments
when screenplay, captions, and audio descriptions crisscross
in collaboration with Third Coast Percussion and Jocelyn Frank.
What is behind music? The Life of Instruments questions the what, how, why, and where instruments play roles in music. This work merges screenplay, captions, audio descriptions, and instrumentalists into a playful, thought-provoking story and experience.
Work details
Year created: 2024
Medium: percussion quartet, 1-channel video, and joint stereo audio
Duration: 17 minutes
Cast
Concept: Jay Afrisando
Composer and Screenwriter: Jay Afrisando
Percussions: Third Coast Percussion
Voiceover: Jocelyn Frank
Audio Editor: Rob Byers
The Life of Instruments was a commissioned project for Third Coast Percussion.
About the artists
Third Coast Percussion (TCP) is a GRAMMY® Award-winning Chicago-based percussion quartet and GRAMMY®-nominated composer collective, and is the first percussion ensemble to ever win the revered music award. For nearly 20 years, the ensemble has created exciting and unexpected performances that constantly redefine the classical music experience and “push percussion in new directions, blurring musical boundaries and beguiling new listeners” (NPR), with a brilliantly varied sonic palette and “dazzling rhythmic workouts” (Pitchfork). In its latest GRAMMY® nomination, TCP’s 2023 album Between Breaths has been nominated under Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance in the 2024 GRAMMY® Awards.
Award-winning journalist Jocelyn Frank is a sought-after expert in podcast production, project management and interactive art experiences. She is the producer for Slate's Political Gabfest, The Whistlestop Podcast with John Dickerson and CBS's Face the Nation Diary. Other clients include BBC R4, NPR, The Guardian, Marketplace, Latino USA, International Reporting Project, 20k, The Center for Investigative Reporting, Midroll and Smithsonian. Frank has been a featured speaker at MIT, University of Michigan, University of Maryland, Megapolis, Women and Journalism Symposium, and the Washington Project for the Arts. She is the managing facilitator for the DC Listening Lounge (DCLL), an audio arts collective that meets monthly (since 2003) to listen, facilitate workshops and audio field trips and present Sound Scene—an all-ages interactive audio art installation.
Performance
Currents at Constellation, Chicago, IL, US, 21 June 2024.
April in Santa Cruz Creative Music and Arts Festival 2024, Music Center Recital Hall, the University of California, Santa Cruz, CA, US, 7 April 2024. Curated by Ben Leeds Carson.
Four TCP members are in action with various percussions. Above the stage is a video projection that reads, “As a result, the many me make a jungle of sounds” in bright text and dark background. Photo: Jay Afrisando. Event: April in Santa Cruz Creative Music and Arts Festival 2024.
Four TCP members’ right hands are lifted above to mimic a clock’s hand. Behind them are various percussions and a video projection that reads, “I vaporize, yet I become imagination,” in bright text and dark background. Still from Currents at Constellation, Chicago, 2024.