“Maps suggest explanations, and while explanations reassure us, they also inspire us to ask more questions, consider other possibilities. To ask for a map is to say, ‘Tell me a story’”
Peter Turchi
The Atlas is an hour long concert work composed by EO Director Richard Carrick that is the result of a musical investigation influenced by the two step process of creating an atlas, namely that of explorer (to identify and understand the land) and of guide (to lead others through it). The land in this case is a combination of the sonic possibilities of piano techniques today, the vast landscape of piano repertoire in contemporary and classical music, and the composer's own set of varied experience performing avant-garde, experimental, and improvised musics, alongside the string quartet possibilities.
EO Personnel:
Jennifer Choi & Pala Garcia - violin; Kal Sugatski - viola; John Popham - cello; Richard Carrick - piano, compositio
From Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer by Peter Turchi
”Writing is often discussed as two separate acts…One is the act of exploration: some combination of premeditated searching and undisciplined, perhaps only partly conscious rambling. This includes scribbling notes, considering potential scenes, lines, or images, inventing characters, even writing drafts. History tells us that exploration is assertive action in the face of uncertain assumptions, often involving false starts, missteps, and surprises — all familiar parts of the writer’s work. If we persist, we discover our story within the world of that [larger] story. The other act of writing we might call presentation. Applying knowledge, skill, and talent, we create a document meant to communicate with, and have an effect on, others. The purpose of a story, or poem, unlike that of a diary, is not to record our experience but to create a context for, and to lead the reader on, a journey.
That is to say, at some point we turn from the role of Explorer to take on that of Guide.”
THE ATLAS is presented by the Council for the Arts at MIT (CAMIT) and MIT Music and Theater Arts, and curated by Christian Frederickson for the Hearing Pictures series.