Artist Statement

Klimchak and Stuart Gerber will perform a percussion concert for home-built instruments which use water as part of their design. There will be one or more popup performances of each of the three pieces along the beltline culminating in a final performance of all three works.

 

The first piece Bowled Over, was composed and developed during a 2019 residency at Florida’s Safety Harbor Art and Music Center. The duet uses waterfilled bowls connected together with hoses. As the players raise the bowls they lower the pitch of both their own bowl and raise the pitch of the other player’s bowl. This makes for an exciting collaboration because the players are literally joined together by an umbilical cord affecting each of them. World premiere.

 

The second piece, When You Whistle, It’s Not Work, was commissioned in 2016 by Art in Odd Places. The solo performance utilizes a wheeled kitchen sink with running water as a percussion instrument, along with elements of string instruments, wind instruments, vocals and electronics to loop the performance into multiple layers. The performance blends modern classical music with the joy of a young boy playing on pots and pans in the kitchen. Atlanta premier.

 

The third, piece, Waterphonics, uses a custom-built bass marimba, made from 15-25 water-cooler jugs tuned to a microtonal scale with different amounts of water in them. The duet is similar to a 4 hand piano piece.