Meet the Composer

Christopher Jonas
photo by Kate Russell

GARDEN, Chapter Two “Invisible Cities” is part of a series of music-driven intermedia performance/installations developed over 3 years that use linear-immersive media (live music, installation, transparent screens and projected video) to explore expressive, atmospheric, metaphoric, psychological and cross-cultural realms of place, dwelling, urban identity and the human environment. Inspired by author Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, the second chapter of GARDEN is an exploration of identity within the human ecosystems of US cities at night. This chapter will be created via collaborative workshop sessions with Brooklyn based brass sextet TILT SIXtet in NYC, and with the Littleglobe creative team in Santa Fe working on the project’s projected video, a set of transparent screens (enveloping the performers), costumes, spoken text, movement and music. The resultant installation and linked 50 minute intermedia composition takes place in front of an audience within the multiple layers of video screens, mixing live music with projected video of imaginary and surreal cityscapes, abstract landscapes and human figures.

World premiere: May 2011