Grantee Spotlight: Transient Canvas

November 30, 2020 In: Ahead of the Beat, PRJC News, Sound Bits

The article below was written by Amy Advocat, Executive Director of Transient Canvas, a 2018 Paul R. Judy Center for Innovation and Research Grant Recipient. Boston-based contemporary duo Transient Canvas is on a mission to revolutionize the modern concert experience. Since 2011, their innovative performances have been praised as “superb” by the Boston Globe and “disarming” by Cleveland Classical, with the San Francisco Chronicle lauding “the versatile imagination they both display and inspire in others.” Bass clarinetist Amy Advocat and marimbist Matt Sharrock relish the creative potential of working with living composers, having amassed a varied repertoire of over 80 commissioned works in addition to working with hundreds of student composers from all over the world. 

Pictured: Transient Canvas (Amy Advocat, bass clarinet; Matt Sharrock, marimba). Photo by Robert Torres.

The pandemic has restructured the way musicians work, putting us behind screens instead of onstage. This has created a whole new genre of performance: the livestream, for better or worse. A positive aspect has been the ability to connect with audiences at larger distances in a more intimate way. The chat box has brought us together to discuss performances as they happen, and side-by-side video chats allow composers to talk with performers in between pieces. It’s an amazing way to bring people together! The negative side is that, of course, this sort of performance is not ideal: the look and sound of a live-stream concert simply does not replace the real thing. It has also placed added strain for performers who now have to act as presenters, sound engineers, camera operators, and internet technicians, all while doing the difficult job of performing and maintaining their composure through it all.

As the Executive Director of Transient Canvas, I’ve been very proud of the ways we’ve continued to fulfill our mission to promote the works of living composers, connect with audiences, and engage the next generation of musicians. In the “before COVID era,” our performances were presented in a friendly, relaxed atmosphere, inviting rather than alienating people who may otherwise have never heard anything like it before. Presenting a live-stream event that imitates the intimacy of our live performances required us to think on our feet and get creative very quickly.

The week the pandemic hit, like so many other ensembles, we had dozens of cancellations. Tours were called off. Projects were paused, including our newly commissioned opera Exposure. Fortunately, the kind folks at the Johnstone Fund for New Music did not pull their funding of what would have been the premiere of Exposure in Columbus, OH. We decided to put their funds towards the creation of a six-part livestream concert series entitled Living Rooms Unite which completed our concert season in the Spring of 2020. It was through this series that we learned to create intimate, relaxed livestream concerts of music interspersed with discussion and interactive live-chat. Our technology improved with each performance, adding banners and program information to the videos, as well as improved audio and video. 

Pictured: Elyse Anne Kakacek as “Emily” in Exposure. Photo by Frisson Films, Inc.

But, this new opera commission was still waiting for its premiere. Exposure, by Daniel Felsenfeld with libretto by Bea Goodwin, had already seen a major delay. Back in 2019, Danny was sent to the hospital for emergency brain surgery before completing the work delaying the premiere to March 2020. And, we all know what happened in March 2020. 

We did not want to delay any longer, but at first we were not sure how to proceed. The difficulty of premiering a new opera during a pandemic seemed insurmountable. With uncertain safety recommendations for singers during the pandemic, artists temporarily relocated to Los Angeles and Montana, plus artists who were already residing in both Boston and New York City, we had to think creatively to get our project off the ground. After many artistic meetings over Zoom, we all decided that the best way forward was to create an audio recording with subtitles. We’d be premiering the work with no rehearsals, having never worked together before, so we’d be lucky to pull it off! 

As mentioned above, musicians have been tasked with more than ever in order to continue our work during this pandemic. The success of Exposure hinged on my ability to organize a remote recording session, even though I’m not an audio engineer. For this project, I had to play the roles of musician, presenter, audio engineer, video producer, and caption writer. The additional hours required of me were not insignificant. A click track was necessary to keep us all together. Creating a click track for a 75-minute opera with flexible tempos and constantly changing meters was no small task, requiring 15-20 hours of my time for the click track alone. I then divided the opera into 90 shorter segments numbered and organized in a shared Google Drive folder that we all used to upload our materials. Transient Canvas recorded together in Boston (we live in the same house so this was no issue) and the singers each recorded in their respective closets. Then I edited all of the segments together with four microphone tracks for Transient Canvas and one each for the singers. Because I’d only just learned how to use Logic Pro, I did not want to master these tracks myself. At an additional cost, we had the opera mastered by Suono Vivo Audio Service in Greater Boston. Jeffrey Means, the engineer, did an amazing job. When the audio was complete, I made subtitles using Final Cut Pro, a program I’m also new to, but one that has become essential during this pandemic. 

Sara Lin Yoder as Aliana in Exposure. Photo by Frisson Films, Inc.

Thankfully, all of our time and hard work has produced an audio recording that will have a longer life and larger reach than the live performance ever would. Excitingly, Frisson Films, a New York City-based non-profit film organization, has taken interest in the project and will be creating a full-length film of the opera for their first annual film festival next season. Much of the audio recording from this premiere will be used for the film. We are so grateful to them for giving us the opportunity to present this opera in a more complete way. And for giving it a life past the premiere, which is something we are always passionate about in our collaborations. 

While the pandemic has placed additional strains and workload on all of us, it’s been an incredible thing to witness ensembles and musicians persevering through this difficult time. We know how thankless these extra hours may seem some days, but we’ve been so pleased to see audiences respond so positively to the continuation of music in their lives. We look forward to a day where we can again join our colleagues in a live performance, but we are so grateful to have made music together even remotely. Until the pandemic ends, we will continue to find ways to bring our projects to life. And we will continue to find joy in the ways that we can all still connect. 

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