Heartwarming Meeting of March 30, 2024

May 3, 2024

On March 30, 2024, SMRN held another warm meeting with a group of members, including J.R. Osborn, Juan Castrillon, Azadeh Emadi, Pantea Karimi, Steven Baris, Niusha Hatefinia, Nezih Erdoğan, Farshid Kazemi, Masayuki Iwase, Radek Przedpełski, and Laura Marks.

During the meeting, our friend Juan Castrillon presented his composition piece for the SMRN Whispers project. Following that, Azadeh and Niusha gave a tour of the SMRN website's features and provided instructions on how to use them.
 

In the first part of the meeting, Juan discussed his composition, which he created based on images he received from Wolfgang. These images were either fragments of the same image or different images framed and cut in various ways. He divided them into nine scenes, assigning each a number based on his interpretation of their relationships. Using these numbers, he composed music by playing the strings of a piano in a style similar to an Aeolian harp. The sequence of images guided his exploration of different sections of the piano, allowing him to improvise by moving between octaves and pressing the strings differently depending on whether the images seemed related or distinct. The piece was performed using the piano of the late James Primos, a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania, whose teaching on the connection between breathing and piano playing influenced Juan's approach.

This composition for The Whispers project has inspired Juan's current work designing Aeolian instruments in Cyprus, where the wind performs on the instruments. He is recording wind sounds and creating instruments that reflect the fragmented views from The Whispers project while shaping his new endeavors. Despite some issues with video manipulation, the sound captures his response to Wolfgang’s piece and embodies the spirit of The Whispers. This ongoing reflection is guiding Juan's future projects.

In the second part of the meeting, the general discussion revolved around the SMRN website's features and instructions on how to use them.