The Interpreters

for video-recorded actor and string quartet

2018

An improvised audiovisual act by a Romanian band, a personal recording of two men’s visit to an island, an old documentary about an acute syndrome, and a recent documentary about workers still cleaning up after a disaster. I watched these four videos and wrote pieces of text by interpreting what I saw. Afterwards, I intertwined the four texts and enclosed the result with an account of a recurrent dream I have had. Parts of the English text were translated to Romanian by an actor, who then interpreted the entire script in front of the camera. His recorded performance is the starting point for a live musical interpretation of the text by four string players. They take cues from the actor and improvise based on specific sentences and other directions that I provided them. The combined performances are, finally, offered to you for further interpretation.