Glimmer (2004)

Glimmer engages the concert audience as musical collaborators who do not just listen to the performance but actively shape it. Each audience member is given a battery-operated light stick which he or she waves back and forth over the course of the piece. Computer software analyzes live video of the audience and sends instructions to each musician via multi-colored lights mounted on each player’s stand.

Glimmer was commissioned by the American Composers Orchestra, Steven Sloane, music director, Robert Beaser, artistic director, Dennis Russell Davies, conductor laureate. This work was funded in part by the Composer Assistance Program of the American Music Center.

Additional thanks to the Columbia University Computer Music Center (Brad Garton, director) and Akademie Schloss Solitude (Jean-Baptiste Joly, director).

Glimmer exists in two versions: for 25-player chamber orchestra and approximately 600 audience members; or for 16-player string orchestra and approximately 200 audience members.

• 25-player version (5.7 MB PDF file)
• 15-player version (4.1 MB PDF file)

The score includes a supplementary DVD with video simulations of the piece. Here are the DVD contents as downloadable Quicktime movies:

• Simulation of One Musician Light (no audio) [4.5 MB]
• Simulation of All Musician Lights (audio) [19.1 MB]
• Video Projection (no audio) [14.6 MB]

You can read more about the aesthetic background and an assessment of the premiere performance in my doctoral dissertation (3.3 MB PDF file).

For the true geeks out there, you can peruse the source code for the software, written in Cycling '74's Max and Jitter environments.

• audience introduction: dialup | broadband
• performance: dialup | broadband

Anthony Tomassini's review in the New York Times.

An article I wrote for the American Composers Orchestra's newsletter.

Dawn Chan's article in New York Arts Magazine.

Robert Gable's blog entry on aworks.