THE TIES THAT BIND US

​Breath & Hammer: The Ties that Bind Us is a fully immersive audio-visual surround-sound concert/art installation experience created by Krakauer & Tagg with visuals by video artist Jesse Gilbert.
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​The Ties that Bind Us is an immersive concert experience that envelops the audience in an array of sound and images. Originally designed for the Pierre Boulez Saal’s multi-level, in-the-round hall, Breath & Hammer: The Ties That Bind Us is a new incarnation of the Breath & Hammer Electric program transformed into a live videography, spatialized surround-sound multisensory concert experience.

Clarinetist/composer David Krakauer and composer/pianist Kathleen Tagg come together in a passionate, eclectic and highly personal musical journey called Breath & Hammer: The Ties That Bind Us. Krakauer and Tagg share a constant quest to redefine the sounds and roles of their instruments and push far outside the boundaries of the traditional clarinet and piano recital by including extended techniques, loops and samples (all generated from either the piano or the clarinet) in a program of pieces by the duo and a host of performer-composers from around the globe.

The starting point of the program is made up of their arrangements of songs by composers who are friends and close associates. The program includes pieces by creators as diverse as New York-based visionary John Zorn, Syrian clarinetist Kinan Azmeh, Cuban percussionist Roberto Rodriguez, as well as their own original compositions that contain influences ranging from interlocking drumming patterns and romantic symphonic music, to minimalism and klezmer.

Through the use of live cameras and videographer Jesse Gilbert’s original audio-reactive visual instrument, SpectralGL, the audience is invited to form a more immediate and intimate relationship with the performers and their creative process as it unfolds. The original video design, projected onto a translucent hexagon of scrims surrounding the performers, was custom-made for the in-the-round performance space of Berlin’s Pierre Boulez Saal. However, Breath & Hammer: The Ties That Bind Us is able to adapt to the unique needs of each performance space and is equally at home in a proscenium or in-the-round hall.

​The Breath & Hammer project is a passionate, eclectic and highly personal musical journey representing the confluence of many streams: the strong foundations of both performers as classical concert musicians, Krakauer’s years as a klezmer innovator, composer, band leader and avant-garde experimentalist, and Tagg’s multi-faceted career creating and performing for the stage and theater, as well as her skills as an arranger and producer. Krakauer & Tagg share a constant quest to redefine the sounds and roles of their instruments and push far outside the boundaries of the traditional clarinet and piano recital by including extended techniques, loops and samples (all generated from either the piano or the clarinet).
In the words of Krakauer & Tagg: “Fundamentally, Breath & Hammer is about connections between people and a celebration of identity through music.”

All photos by Peter Adamick

For this fully immersive show, Breath & Hammer: The Ties That Bind Us, Tagg created a brand new set of “tape piece” interludes that act as bridges between the different pieces on the program. These interludes travel throughout the space within the hall through a surround-sound speaker configuration, creating a sonic representation of musical offerings from one piece to the next as well as a nod to the ties that connect us to one another no matter how far apart we may seem. Some interludes begin with elements from the preceding piece that may be unrecognizable in their new context, and that then invite elements of the next piece to join them and lead into the next piece.

Through the use of live cameras and videographer Jesse Gilbert’s original audio-reactive visual instrument, SpectralGL, the audience is invited to form a more immediate and intimate relationship with the performers and their creative process as it unfolds. The original video design, projected onto a translucent hexagon of scrims surrounding the performers, was custom-made for the in-the-round performance space of Berlin’s Pierre Boulez Saal. However, Breath & Hammer: The Ties That Bind Us is able to adapt to the unique needs of each performance space and is equally at home in a proscenium or in-the-round hall.