I found out on Thursday that I won’t be spending part of the night making the organ roar at my church, Holy Trinity at the Eaton Centre, which is hosting one of the commissioned Nuit Blanche projects. That leaves me free to sample other musical installations.
The Holy Trinity show is Familia, by Torontonian Bruno Billio. The church’s 160-year-old pine floor is to be covered with reflective material so that floor and painted ceiling become one. Clusters of dining chairs will hang precariously from the rafters. And a batallion of heavy rock-loving musicians (including the keyboard player from Rush, I am told) will add a gothic aural ambience from the organ bench.
Because most installations draw on several media to tell their story, music is pervasive at Nuit Blanche. But there are a couple of organizations placing it front and centre:
The Canadian Music Centre has asked LewWebb Projects to bring in a vintage street marquee (complete with 100 bulbs) to create moving patterns to accompany a total of 14 pianists between 7 p.m. and 6 a.m. Some of the city’s finest younger talents are going to pass through the doors of Chalmers House for A Touch of Light. Were I awake, I would do my best to catch young Toronto jazz master Chris Donnelly at 3 a.m.
New Adventures in Sound Art hosts This Place is No Place, a mix of image and sound by American artist Lawton Hall, as part of the wider Nuit Blanche offerings at the Artscape Wychwood Barns.
In case you’d rather explore the possibilities and threats of silence, the Deaf Culture Centre is offering a sculptural response from those whose world is musical in other ways in Identity in Place.
John Terauds