Composer, instrument maker, and performer Ellen Fullman (b. 1957, Memphis, TN) has focused on the development of her signature project, The Long String Instrument, for over forty years. Using dozens of tuned strings, each over 50 feet in length, Fullman transforms physical space into a site-specific musical instrument. Soundless is composed by Fullman and her longtime collaborator, cellist and guitarist Theresa Wong (b. 1976, Schenectady, NY). The work explores string resonance and its capacity to create a space of connection, empathy, and multiplicity. The spectrally undulating drones of the Long String Instrument combine with rhythms created by Fullman’s unique ‘shoveler’ tool as well as Wong’s performance on cello and electric guitar, spatialized through four-channel amplification. The title of the piece comes from a line of poetry by the 12th century female Taoist, Sun Bu-er: “In the soundless is the ultimate pleasure all along.“ Translator Thomas Cleary explains that the soundless is a metaphor for the limitless and the state of wholeness prior to the dichotomy of subject and object. In this piece, the duo aims to blur background and foreground to create a dynamic sound field constantly in flux. At times, the duo consciously aims for a phenomenon they call 'bloom', where a cello or guitar tone sympathetically resonates with a frequency already sounding on the LSI, or triggers an overtone or subtone that isn't yet sounding. Together, Fullman and Wong create a work that responds to and is shaped by the industrial architecture of WAREHOUSE.
Soundless was commissioned by room40 following the label’s critically acclaimed release of their album, Harbors.
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