This year, the Timber Creek Fine Arts Department is bringing back sound painting, but on a whole new level than its first appearance in 2015.
Sound-painting is a unique live composing sign language created in 1974 by Walter Thompson, which involves musicians, dancers, actors, and choirs.
In 2015, the Timber Creek band and theatre collaborated together to produce a sound painting production with Leese Walker as the sound painting conductor. Leese Walker is a colleague of Walter Thompson’s and has helped him to develop the many cues of sound painting.
“We first invited Leese to come to Timber Creel two years ago and we found the experience to be a really eye-opening one for the students,” said Blake Wilson, Theatre Director. “Improvisation, which is a key aspect of Soundpainting is really a valuable experience for performers because it helps them to develop their own creative choices. For some of our students it’s a way to break out of their comfort zones and explore new possibilities for performing. It allows them to take ownership of the performance but with the outside eye of a conductor to help craft a unified performance.”
Unlike 2015, this year’s sound painting performance will have a theme, and will incorporate smaller and larger ensembles all in one setting This year, sound painting is involving Theatre, Choir, and Band, which is unique, because it is rare that all three of these organizations get to collaborate together and perform all together on the same stage in a creative and improvised way.
“The title for this year’s performance is Tempest Toss’d,” explained Wilson. “The inspiration for this comes from both the title of our current theatre production, The Tempest, but also from the recent hurricanes that have affected Texas, Puerto Rico and other places. We’ll be exploring some of the themes from the play, such as love, loss, redemption, and forgiveness, as well as their connection to more present-day storms. So you’ll see & hear excerpts of snippets of both the play and related musical compositions being worked into the performance.”
A select group of Theatre, Choir, and Band students will work all next week with Leese Walker to piece together the production On Thursday, Dec. 14, at 7:00 p.m. in the Fine Arts Center, Tempest Toss’d will be performed. Admission is free for all those who want to come out and support it.