“I’m going to write you a piece so soft, I don’t care if no one can hear it.”
This was composer Michael Gordon’s response to Monica Germino’s news that she would have to protect her hearing by stopping or adapting how she played the violin.
Inspired by Germino’s strength and determination, four of the world’s leading composers – Michael Gordon, Julia Wolfe, and David Lang (co-founders of Bang on a Can) and legendary composer Louis Andriessen – joined forces to create MUTED. This collective composition features what Germino calls ‘whisperviolin’ and a part for Monica’s singing voice (in settings of texts from the 1930’s New York Post cult column Archy and Mehitabel).
Taking audiences to the thresholds of audibility, this intensely theatrical piece is conceived for small groups of listeners in intimate spaces.