A hybrid telematic orchestra performance with improvising between a zoom orchestra and the room orchestra in the CCA Theatre for GIOFest XVI, which was recorded for the BBC Radio 3 New Music Show.

PERFORMANCE composed and staged by Jessica Argo, PHOTOMONTAGE FILM composed and edited by Jessica Argo, with photography from Brian Hartly Stillmotion Photo, and the performance recording mixed and mastered by Jim McEwan.

HYBRID PIECE, for ZOOM ORCHESTRA and ROOM ORCHESTRA. Movement I: Listen and Respond

Movement II: spotlights role models for creativity and care that transcends categorisation (and time/space barriers) - I am so lucky to have made music/dance/text with these talented women who never fail to make me laugh, cry or and think deeply about our relationships with eachother and care for humans and more-than-humans x (watch this space for a GIO Global film from Constance, “a piece to entice birds” (who had not returned to her stoop in Washington heights, NYC) Stillmotionarts photos by Brian Hartley @stillmotionarts

Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra HYBRID PIECE, MOVEMENT III: Free improvisation with Lighting Crescendo

Hybrid Piece for ZOOM Orchestra and ROOM Orchestra

Composing a piece that at first seemed mere stage directions –

“You play – whatever you want”

now “you play – in response”

“pre-selected duet” –

“now all of you play – whatever you want, as long as you are crescendoing with the light”

I wanted to place the ZOOM orchestra, first on, centre stage – all eyes and ears on them – then ask the ROOM orchestra to
honour their launch of the festival as if an answer to their question. A Yes, and…

I needed to spotlight key matriarchal voices in a duet.

And then push the ZOOM Orchestra and ROOM orchestra to “play together” in a shared task -knowing the ROOM orchestra was bathed in the crescendo of light brightness – and knowing the ZOOM orchestra merely saw the stage light as a beam standing in for a face on their computer screen.

So, film is a structuring role within our spontaneous music – the quest to produce an unweildily expanding archive is MOTIVATED by the spotlight – the staging in our physical festival with a theatre audience.

By setting a regular space (that space - actually being time! 2 hours every Tuesday) for our Global Orchestra to perform to camera – in “Diverse Spaces and Places” – means that we frame, prioritise our everyday.

Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra have a fluid and multi-dimensional (perhaps even quantum or multi-versal) approach to filming improvisation and improvising with film.
Film can be a structuring role within the music, or film can explode and implode where and when that music is situated - essentially a band can play Everything, Everywhere, All at Once – using telematic digital video-conferencing technology and/or the physical theatre apparatus – sometimes ALL AT ONCE.