Music takes one to special places. Even with the knowledge of everything creative existing between a reverent and at times challenging intersection within the labyrinth of this unique museum, I still wasn’t prepared for the scale of the space and the significance of this event. I walked in with the musicians into a construction site, hard hats and high vis get ups galore, and walked out transformed after two days of brushing off the concrete dust and connecting and performing in the space.
It would have been impossible to truly know what was happening until it unfolded, and until one was within it. This was a coming together of the artist, Anselm Kiefer, his work comprising the building and the works within the space on an enormous scale: the space, art, music and dance. All these forces combine and reside within the three dimensions of the physical space and facilitate a stepping off point into other realms.
The music performed for the VIP Opening Event, Liminal by Nick Tvasis, composer, ensemble leader and double bass, a stunning evocative, meditative, energised, ethereal work beautifully balanced on boundaries that explore the nexus of ancient chant, contemporary minimalism and experimental improvisation, with Deborah Kayser singing like an angel from heaven and percussionists Peter Neville and Hamish Upton capturing each moment with nuanced timbral expression and rhythmic precision. My role in this ensemble, playing within the very high and the very low pitched woodwinds; soothing elongated tones on the bass clarinet, creating some havoc on the baritone saxophone with phrases that deliberately disrupt with raw sonic expression, and then high range of the soprano saxophone ringing out. I felt the sound waves of my soprano cut through the entire five stories of the open concrete space, resonating out for second after second. Never before have I experienced the length of these sound waves go so far acoustically in a way that they were able to just hang in the air. It felt like playing in one of the biggest and grandest cathedrals in the world, images of the Kölner Dom flashed before my eyes.
It is extraordinary what can happen, when all the artistic elements come together, both visual and live performance to create a compelling experience and into the realm of expression bringing together timeless elements unfolding into the moment, through the process of reinvention of something so new, but also something ancient and something for right now.
The artist came to sit with us whilst we were playing, within the immersive sounds, an immense privilege, and at 80 years old, providing a connection to his lifetime of expression within the visual realm. An incredible moment of everything coming together, his artistic practice larger than life itself.
Elektra is a cathedral, one for the current times, sculptured out of concrete, capturing an exquisite beauty with an industrial edge, where the works by the artist are the space and reside within the space.
Art waits for no one, but in these moments in Elektra I felt time stand still. This moment has come and the sounds and movement of the live performance has concluded, the physical space stands proud and strong. The music and dance continues to resonate in my mind, travelling with me back home to Melbourne. I feel the essence of the space now resides within transformative forces of the experience, and for this I am immensely grateful.
Elektra by Anselm Kiefer is inspired, extraordinary and an all-immersive experience and the vision of David Walsh to bring this to life on a gigantic scale at MONA is truly a gift to us all.
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