For those savvy in computer programming, you might recognize the code “if else.” For those who aren’t so savvy, Philip Snyder explains, “It’s what you would code if you wanted to say, ‘If these parameters are met, do this, or if these parameters are not met, do this something else.’” But Snyder adds that this sentiment also carries in his experimental flute duo, if.else, with Jenny Davis.
“We’re always looking for ways for the pieces that we do to be reliant on the specific situation as opposed to being the same thing every time,” he explains, “so the energy in the room can change the way the piece progresses. It’s the sense that every time you’re in a space doing a thing, it’s gonna be wildly different from one time to the next.”
For their upcoming performance, the duo commissioned experimental composer Randy Gibson, who, in turn, created The Four Pillars Breathing in Harmonic Time, a durational, immersive sound piece, integrating flutes and electronics. To accompany the three-hour piece, Gibson, also a visual artist, created projections that’ll move throughout the darkened space. With these different elements, the hope is to make the experience of sound into something new and all-encompassing. It’s a moment to sit down, without any distractions, and just take in the music and let it guide your thoughts, almost like a meditation.
“There are these sounds that happen and they are repeating on these very large scales to a point that you’re not immediately perceiving their repetition or the speed of which they’re repeating,” Snyder says, “but they are expanding and contracting in a way that shifts and modulates your expectation and experience of time throughout the piece. … And the duration element itself kind of takes it to a new place that we wouldn’t be able go to if we were going to a concert that’s four- to five-minute songs, or even a classical concert where it’s 10 to 15.”
With the performance being so long, though, the duo encourages audience members to get comfortable, whether that be by bringing a blanket or a mat, or choosing a chair removed from the projection field, or even leaving early if they have to.
“As an audience member,” Davis adds, “we might put on ourselves like, ‘Oh, I need to be or act a certain way or feel a certain way about the performance or know something about it,’ and really, you can throw that out the window a little bit and just come and experience it. That’s kind of the whole point of it. It’s introspective, so consider how you feel.
“The most beautiful thing about any music performance is that people are gonna get different things out of it,” Davis continues. “Maybe, that person is coming in and they had an extremely stressful day at work and this is a release, or maybe they’re riding a high and this is gonna continue that or bring it down a little bit. Everybody in the audience is bringing something different into that space and into that room, and that creates an energy in the room” — an energy that the flutists can channel in their performance.
The Four Pillars Breathing in Harmonic Time, No. 2 Vance, 325 Wagner St., Wednesday, December 14, 7 p.m., free.
Ben Rednour 
