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FEATURE: Palo Alto JCC unveils ‘mind-blowing’ musical sculpture by Richard Deutsch
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Here is literally a beautiful piece of news. You are hearing music that was composed by a man named Ron Shalom that was written specifically for a piece of sculpture that lives outside a building in Palo Alto. Okay, so I'm going to link the news article about the Palo Alto JCC. They unveiled a mind blowing, as they say in the title. And it's totally true, a musical sculpture by a sculptor named Richard Deutsch. And it's so beautiful and so unique
Ron Shalom
@ron.shalom · 4:43
And later my job became how to turn the sculpture into a musical instrument. So Rich designed the stainless steel sculpture and fabricated it. And then my job, over the course of the last two years, in tandem with Rich and mostly independently, has been to make it something that makes sound. And so in developing and prototyping all different kinds of ideas, we finally created something that is both an instrument that any composer can create sound art for and with
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 2:14
Do people download the app in front of you and are you seeing sort of the user experience what's been going on for you in terms of your understanding of how this is working? And are you able to scale this to a point where you can help other artists in the world create experiences like this? And I guess I'm asking because I always love when something works so well. I want it to propagate out into the world. So is that an intention that you and Richard have?
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
Ron Shalom
@ron.shalom · 4:21
So as far as Rich and I are concerned, we think that the questions are wide open, and we've just created a tool whose possibilities we've just started to explore. I know that he and I are very excited to create other interactive sound sculptors together. And it's true that this is a system that could be implemented in a lot of different places. And we've thought about that. But we we have so many other ideas, too
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:39
But maybe the point where the two of you realized the final shape, the symbolism of that shape, and maybe go into the mysticism of the 18 and give us a little bit of that background as well as any technology you want to share with us. But I love that it's just a web page. I love that it's interactive. I just think it feels really accessible, so really enjoying the potential of this conversation. And it will lead up to the live event on July 8
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 0:48
I want to add a little bit to this conversation around the trend of sound celebration in outdoor spaces. The Blanton Museum of Art in Austin just announced a major gift that is dedicated to sound art in their space. I'm going to link this here for everyone to see. It sounds pretty amazing. It's going to feature an incredible sound Gallery that enables us to hear natural sound elements by the sound artist Bill Fontana
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 3:28
We played it at the grand opening, and I've been using it mostly to test it as I'm working on making sure it's ready to go. And that is something that can last for a long time. This is Nicholas Helenschmidt Vent Services here at JCC. I encourage everybody to come in to just hang out and be a part of this incredible atmospheric, environmental sound experience
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 2:15
You just go to the website and you learn how to move these little tabs back and forth. Here you go. This is all being controlled by Ron holding his phone. His phone is linked to a web page. The web page has a very simple interface, and he is making music standing about 10ft away. Pretty awesome. One more question before I go in terms of the space, how has this sculpture kind of affected this whole area? What?
Erika Schon
@Riki · 0:59
And Deborah, thank you so much for creating the conversation with Ron and for visiting this beautiful work of art. And I hope these types of collaborations continue. And Ron, I can't wait to see what you do next with perhaps this talented artist and other sculptors to see where else music and visual art will merge. Thank you
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