Dissertation Recording Session No. 1, PC: Wayne Reich.
“Everyone needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike” (John Muir, from The Yosemite).
Often, I find myself yearning for mountains and trees somewhere, anywhere. There’s something wonderfully restorative about out-of-the-way places—and the time it takes to enjoy them. Imagine you’re in a forest. Maybe you’re sitting on its pine-needle floor or blazing a trail. Either way, picture afternoon sunlight being filtered by trees around you. There’s a warm glow that shimmers through leaves and needles, vibrant like a live wire.
Dr. Kyle Rowan uses sound and light intermedia to capture this forest-light phenomenon in his composition Komorebi for solo flute and lighting, the third video in my flute and light project! The Japanese word Komorebi, roughly translated, means: sunlight filtering through leaves.
Okay—but wait. Flute and light project? Intermedia? Third video? What am I yakking about? Let me get you up to speed!
Here’s an info video I made about my flute/light intermedia art project!
And here are links to the first two cinematic videos:
Anna Meadors’ At Daybreak
Stuart Saunders Smith’s The Circle of Light.
Komorebi’s lighting concept features shifting shadows and colors that fade in and out puckishly. I’d say the music complements the lighting—but it more than complements it. Together, they are sprightly, caressing, shimmering, enveloping. Together.
Lighting technicians Katherine Ward and Abigail Simoneau manually controlled the lighting board faders in this video production. Wayne Reich and Ben Singer created the cinematic video. All recording was done on December 3, 2016 in UNCG’s Brown Building Theatre. My heartfelt thanks to all who helped me make this video—including those who took the time to teach me a thing or two about lighting boards!
Wayne published a post about Komorebi on his blog. Check it out for a glimpse into his perspective as videographer and some great pictures of the editing process!
Krisztina Dér Noble, Flutist 