Marco Donnarumma

High Spheres is an open air participative concert where there is no musician, no instrument, but only people playing stones and leaves. The work is inspired by the concept of the Harmony of the High Spheres, studied and discussed by American composer John Cage. This concept concerns the existence of a music living inside the world itself; all of nature creatures and inanimate objects carry this music within themselves. Humans often try to imitate it when they should simply catch it and let it sounds. This music is the sound of the world, it is our most ancient sonic experience.

High Spheres takes place open air. The audience can use multiple microphones to amplify any kind of sound they wish to produce (i.e. voice noises, manipulating leaves, rubbing stones, etc.). Participation to the action is not scheduled so everyone can join the group during the execution. The sonic matter produced by the audience is managed by a custom software for generative music, which interacts with the audience processing in real-time the sounds they produce. When a member of the audience leaves the concert area, the sound she had produced keeps flowing through the surround system, merging and mutating within the collective sonic flow.

The software generates ever changing parameters for the reproduction and manipulation of the incoming audio signals, creating an endless sonic data flow which, once started, will live and grow beyond the time-space of the action. During this ritual thus, the audience creates a self-organizing orchestra composing a unique piece of music, something not repeatable and ever changing. It is, as it were, a form of generative electroacoustic music for non-musicians.