With 100 cymbals, Ryoji Ikeda plunges us into the abyss of vibration. A unique listening experience.
Created in 2019 at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, in the sumptuous hall designed by architect Frank Gehry, 100 cymbals is both a stage performance and an audiovisual installation. Ryoji Ikeda highlights the rich potential of cymbals by following the thin line between noise and harmonic resonance. The seemingly rudimentary instrument, a convex disc made of an alloy of copper, brass and bronze, more commonly used to accentuate certain beats of the bar, is transformed into a powerful polyphonic resource. The different modes of playing, more or less conventional, maintain a fusional – almost choral – sonority and allow harmonic strata and other acoustic results to emerge within a process that a single line could represent: an infinite crescendo, leading from an almost imperceptible murmur to the brilliance of the final fortissimo.
