Ingram Marshall
Fields / Bands

This performance was a live electronic work for gambuh flutes, voices, sleigh bells, clanger, taped string and electronic sound, Serge synthesizer and eight-channel tape delay system.

“In the Fall of 1977, it was agreed between Jan Hafstrom and myself that I should perform a concert at his exhibition in New York City in the Spring, but I had no strong ideas of what I would do until he sent me a series of drawings called Landskap Partitur (Landscape Score) … I began to see these rather symbolic drawings as real landscapes … the white bands became natural sound, less perfect, more textured, susceptible. The remaining, unpainted bands, the fields themselves, became electronic sound, a constant, more reliable somewhat automated feeling. The primary compositional and timbral building in Fields / Bands is accomplished by setting in motion certain sounds which regenerate constantly thus creating fields of textured sound which live out a short existence and creating fields of textured sound which live out a short existence and gradually die away. Three texts came into the picture, all associated with my relationship with Jan and his wife, the dancer Margaretha Asberg.” [artist’s statement]

The three large divisions in this piece were structured by texts and images. Part 1 (Fields 1-5) Further In (text: Thomas Transtromer, voice: Jan Hafstrom); Part II (Fields 6-10) Sung (text: Gunnar Ekelof, voices: Margaretha Asberg, Jan Hafstrom, Ingram Marshall); Part III (Fields 11-15) Fillmore (text: letter found in old Arundell Ranch in Pole Creek Canyon near Fillmore, Ventura Country, California). During the performance, Jan Hafstrom projected slides.

Excerpted from Brentano, R., & Savitt, M. (1981). 112 Workshop, 112 Greene Street: History, artists & artworks. New York: New York University Press.