Indo-German ensemble portrays Kol soundscape

Kolkata: Seven local musicians came together under Berlin-based composer Ignaz Schick’s brainchild of documenting the urban sonic environment of Kolkata. Drawing on the multiple layers of the city’s soundscape, their project ‘City Sounds’ was performed in two four-hour concerts at Max Mueller Bhavan on Friday and Saturday.
Since his first trip to Kolkata in April, Schick started documenting the sounds of the city while simultaneously interacting with local musicians of different genres.During his second trip in November, a group of seven musicians were formed, including Subir Ray, Sukanya Chattopadhyay, Dibyokamal Mitra, Varun Desai, Ankit Malik, Debjit Mahalanobis and Somnath Roy.
Desai explained that their two weeks’ worth of rehearsals, and Schick’s style of conducting, were unique experiences. “Ignaz has a unique conduction method using sign language, with hand gestures, which was modified for music. Since we didn’t have to read traditional sheet music, there was more freedom and room for improvisation,” he said.
The concert employed a mix of electro-acoustics, field recordings, contemporary and Indian classic music, jazz and improvisations. The field recordings were collected by Schick. The audio-visual performance is a mix of instrumental and conductions, with a visual scoring of city photos. “The city has never been documented like this,” Desai said.
The audience sat on two sides of the auditorium, surrounded by digital wall installations of close-up photos of city sights, like traffic, cars, street food and buildings. “This was the first time I saw pictures being interpreted through music,” said an audience member.