Launched on United Nations Day, October 24, 2010, this work is a tribute, in part, to the spirit of that organization, founded in 1945 to maintain peace and foster international communication among all peoples of the world.
teresa mccollough, pianist
If nation states, international bodies and treaties cannot bring peace, perhaps artists can..
On this United Nations Day, the images and music speak for themselves as words have never been enough.
Press Release
American pianist Teresa McCollough to premiere WORLD PIECE by Emmy Award-winning composer Steve Heitzeg on YouTube
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Minneapolis-Saint Paul, MN—October 17, 2010
On October 24, 2010 (United Nations Day) pianist Teresa McCollough will premiere Steve Heitzeg’s World Piece—an ecoscore in 192 movements for each of the 192 member states of the United Nations—in a series of performances available at teresa mccollough projects
Heitzeg composed World Piece for the San Francisco-based McCollough in 2007—carefully illustrating as well as composing each movement. Over the next three years, McCollough recorded the 192 movements in multiple sessions, and listeners can now peruse a digital copy of the ecoscore online, selecting a movement/member state to hear each performance. The experience is a gallery of sound and a musical journey around the world—available at the listener’s pace.
Throughout the highly-improvisatory work, McCollough is called upon to play all parts of the piano (the keys, the strings inside the piano, the wood), to make animal sounds, and to whistle, whisper and sing into the piano. In the Bhutan movement, McCollough plays a high cluster of chords in honor of "the roof of the world" and the Canadian movement is a tender "song for seal pups." In a light-hearted moment, McCollough tosses Euros into the piano for the Monaco movement; as a protest to war, she is directed to scream into the piano for the Vietnam movement, which is represented with a black hole in the score.
Begun on Valentine's Day 2006 as a kind of 'valentine to the world' and composed over 192 consecutive days (as a daily meditation on peace), World Piece evokes the ecological and political issues that each country faces in the challenge to create a global message for world peace. Choosing to compose one chord or movement a day, Heitzeg says he was influenced by composer Lou Harrison’s Peace Piece (Nos. 1-3), John Cage's Litany for the Whale, and nature photographer Jim Brandenburg's project wherein he challenged himself to take only one photograph per day between the autumnal equinox and winter solstice.
"Part protest, part prayer, World Piece is a work that seeks to honor all peoples and cultures and the planet itself," says Heitzeg. "The graphics for each movement are small as a metaphor for the notion that even the smallest of gestures can have a positive impact on the world. As an artist, I feel I have a responsibility to compose a music that strives for a more peaceful world and that honors the beauty of each living being."
World Piece is a tribute, in part, to the spirit of the United Nations, founded in 1945 to maintain peace and foster international communication among all peoples of the world. "It is my hope," says McCollough, "that World Piece will be discovered and enjoyed by a more diverse audience on the internet, reaching out to many people, and spreading a message of tolerance and understanding to all who listen."
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