It’s tough to examine the sonic makeup of Crissy Broadcast with objectivity because it is a piece based so purely on the subjective listener’s experience. There are as many different aural routes as there are heads in the crowd, and with such a staggering amount of musical and spatial information, the unfortunate reality is that something is going to be missed. I found the experience simultaneously intriguing and frustrating – as I wandered from group to group to make musical sense of what was going on, I couldn’t help but feel there was always something just as interesting across the field that was simply getting lost in the breeze. Yet despite my frustrations I found something beautifully poignant about this fact as well, and reflective of a larger reality of modern life. Kudos to Bielawa for allowing enough room in her piece for almost-profound epiphanies on the part of her listeners.
Crissy Broadcast. Photo Credit: James Block
Despite the conceptual difficulties of listening to Crissy Broacast, Bielawa was extremely savvy in her execution of musical ideas. As one wandered among the groups, catching traces of sound in the wind, there were returning ideas that echoed and played off each other. My personal favorite moment (sans foghorn) was at the half-hour mark: I found myself in dead center of the field, the ensembles divided evenly on either side in antiphonal choirs, passing the same chord back and forth across the vast geography of the space. Moments of elision like this were laced throughout the work, from ensemble material to echo games played among a string of wind players along the path bisecting the field.
The musical palette was as diverse as the players involved (which, by the way, ranged from Chinese orchestras to electric guitars, symphonies to alphorns); there were moments of clangorous Ivesian cacophony, Cagean coincidence, and Ligeti-esque sonic specters. Indeed, the work was so loaded with possibility that, as a friend of mine noted, an hour almost didn’t feel like enough. It was more than fortunate that the weekend offered three separate performances!
Crissy Broadcast. Photo Credit: Asa Moore
As the hour rounded off, the ensembles slowly retreated to the perimeter of the field and went their separate ways. There was a smattering of applause on either end, but in many ways the lack of a finale seemed fitting for a piece so purposefully intent on blurring the line between art and life, artist and community. I was left intrigued, captivated, and in possession of more questions than answers. Who is a work like Crissy Broadcast art really for? The performers? The audience? Both? And how is success measured: By the tightness of the musical form? By the satisfaction of the experience? By the level of community engagement? Or by the slew of “teachable moments” the project raises in the path from conception to performance? Regardless of these, the work created an experience that reached beyond the boundaries of classical music, and undoubtedly touched lives along the way.
