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Rabbithole Projects is proud to present

PROMISE RING: A new sound installation by Chris Parrello

Thursday June 4th, 2015
6 - 9 pm

In trying to write about Promise Ring I find myself coming up against the question of what it means to discover something. Discovery by definition needs to be something personal, one becoming aware of something new as related to ones awareness. The awareness is what changes, not the object of discovery, which may be old or new to itself. This is why we do not say "I discovered a song" in place of "I wrote a song", because the song written is supposed to be new to everything, a creation that may be comprised of ideas relating to discoveries, but something generated by the individual rather than observed by him or her. 

Considering this, Promise Ring feels more discovery than composition. The manner in which I am relating the idea is compositional, but perhaps not unlike a photo of a constellation of stars is such - one can be present and artful in the moment, make choices, but the stars and the order among them have long been there, impassive.

Promise Ring is one realization of a constellation of musical intervals, arranged in physical space. I discovered a specific symmetry while experimenting with tonnetz spaces, which are a type of two-dimensional maps of intervallic geography. I did not write this symmetry - it is a principle of musical space, also old and impassive. 

Promise Ring explores and celebrates this discovery, while speaking from my experiences as composer and guitarist as I relate it. As participants move freely through the installation, subtleties of performance and arrangement will be discovered, and personal experiences of the piece spontaneously composed.

Promise Ring is exhibited with the support of a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.