beyond the accident of time — percussion and voices (2019), flexible duration
beyond the accident of time — electroacoustic installation version (2025), duration 20’
Commissioned by The Noguchi Museum. Additional arrangement commissioned by Creative Research into Sound Arts Practice (CRiSAP), for Un-Earthed: A Festival of listening and environment.
Program Notes on the Concert Version
This work honors Isamu Noguchi’s never fully-realized Bell Tower for Hiroshima, 1950 (partially reconstructed 1986). The original bell used for the first movement is Noguchi’s Bell Image (1956–57). The original bells used in the last movement are custom-made oversized sleigh bells—Slay Bells by Adam Morford of Morfbeats—two 6”, two 5” and one 4” in diameter.
The premiere was part of a concert in celebration of the exhibition Changing and Unchanging Things: Noguchi and Hasegawa in Postwar Japan. As a whole, the works on the concert titled Changing and Unchanging Sound, considered being open or closed, amplifying the sentiment of Noguchi and Hasegawa’s conversations about cultural exchanges. In working through sonic and visual forms of how things break up and how they’re put back together, the works on the concert all explore questions about what it is to be human, living in uncertainty and growing after destruction. “Lanzilotti’s score brings us together across the world in remembrance, through the commitment of shared sonic gestures.” (Cities & Health)
This score was created for the premiere to give the performers specific guidelines for the bells chosen for this musical reconstruction. Noguchi imagined the bells for Bell Tower for Hiroshima coming from all over the world. In my piece, I interpret the sculpture not as a physical object that would be built in Hiroshima, but as a sonic concept that could be recreated by bells around the world. As we listen and recreate this space for reflection, we honor and remember what the sculpture represents. This score is only a starting point.
Premiered June 13, 2019 at The Noguchi Museum, Long Island City, New York by Argus Quartet, Johanna Lundy, and Lanzilotti. Special thanks to the museum staff for their ongoing support and generosity in letting us work with Noguchi’s sculptures as sound objects. Photos by Don Stahl.
この作品は、彫刻家イサム・ノグチがついに完成させることのできなかった1950年の作品「広島の鐘楼」（1986年に部分的に再建された）を称えるものです。ノグチはこの作品「広島の鐘楼」のために鐘が世界中から集められることを構想しました。私の作品では、この彫刻が物理的な彫刻作品というよりは、世界中の鐘によって再現できる音の世界ととらえました。耳を澄まし、深く考える空間を作ることで、私たちはこの彫刻が何を表しているかを思い出すことができるでしょう。深く考え、反省することを促すこの空間に耳を澄まし、再現することで、私たちはこの彫刻が象徴しているものに対し敬意を払い、記憶に留めます。
そして、この楽譜は、その出発点にすぎません。— Program note translated by Dai Fujikura
Photos from a performance of beyond the accident of time on the Cosy Nook series, UK, November 2019. (Gabrielle Hb and Emmanuelle Waeckerlé in rehearsal). In this iteration, most of the bells were borrowed from local musicians/artists to honor Noguchi’s concept that the bells would come from all over the world. In this way, the piece becomes a memory of the original resonance, as the musicians become actively responsible for the gathering/remembering.
Text score published in Walking from Scores, edited by Elena Biserna. Les presses du réel, published in September 2022. Bilingual edition (English / French), 13 x 17 cm (softcover, folded poster dust jacket), 512 pages (ill.), ISBN : 978-2-37896-213-5
Walking From Scores is an anthology of text and graphic scores to be used while walking, from Fluxus to the critical works of current artists, through the tradition of experimental music and performance, gathered and presented by Elena Biserna. Works by Peter Ablinger, Milan Adamčiak, Blank Noise, George Brecht, Cornelius Cardew, Seth Cluett, Milan Knížák, Alison Knowles, Takehisa Kosugi, Leilehua Lanzilotti, Alvin Lucier, Max Neuhaus, Pauline Oliveros, Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, Michael Parsons, La Monte Young, and others.
beyond the accident of time performed by Ensemble Dal Niente at Constellation Chicago, Chicago, IL, October 2024
Additional Program Notes on the Electroacoustic Installation Version
For the installation version of beyond the accident of time, I wanted to uplift the different versions—combining excerpts from concert version performances in Chicago and the UK with field recordings of a version of the work that invites community members to participate.
That alternate version came to life in 2020 when I was selected to contribute work for Acts of Air: reshaping the urban sonic, an online exhibition for outdoor participation as part of Un-Earthed: A festival of listening and environment. Curator Lisa Hall was excited to help facilitate my proposed idea to expand beyond the accident of time to create a version that could be performed by people around the world, simultaneously from different places. Lisa wrote in personal correspondence that she liked the idea that the work, “could be performed by one person, individually, on the promise of other performers enacting it elsewhere too.”
In this version of the score for Un-Earthed, the intent of the work was preserved, but the instructions in the score were adjusted so that it could be performed in community by one or more individuals, and was connected to place, activating everyday objects as sculptures of remembrance. The prompt started with this invitation:
Find a metal or glass object in your community (perhaps a lamp post, railing, the side of a building, a ceramic jar) with a complex and beautiful resonance. Listen to the object, exploring the overtones, as remembering.
Artists in Sweden, the UK, and Canada sent me their field recording versions that you hear in this installation version, where we hear the sonic environment within which they have found their object—a resonant railing, pipe, or bridge.
The version for Un-Earthed ended with a new prompt for individuals to enact the work in their urban environment:
Walk to your destination (wherever you were going when you found the object) or return home continuing to hum the pitch you found. If you would like to coordinate with some sonic event in your town, time the ending of this humming with the beginning of the ringing of bells. It can be church bells that ring at a certain time, cheers for health workers that happen with people leaning out their windows banging on pots and pans, or you may end the piece by ringing a bell for as long as you want, carrying the resonance of the Bell Tower in your mind.
August of 2020 also marked the 75th Anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On August 6th, my sister went up to the Cemetery of the Pacific with my mother and aunt to commemorate the Hiroshima bombing. As they were leaving, the cathedral bells began ringing down in the valley. Halfway around the world in Folkestone, UK, my friend Sophie Stone was pointing her video camera to the sky, sounding a bell amongst the singing birds.
Stills from community activations by Lisa Hall, Samuel Thulin, Ananddev Banerjee, and Sophie Stone.
beyond the accident of time — for percussion and voices. All players should play off the score for ease of ensemble.
Set of five scores and Morfbeats Slay Bell rental available within the United States only. Includes one way shipping (return shipping not included). Please choose this option in the dropdown menu below, or fill out the inquiry form at checkout.
Digital download of the score for beyond the accident of time for percussion and voices. All players should play off the score for ease of ensemble.
Set of five scores and Morfbeats Slay Bell rental available within the United States only. Includes one way shipping (return shipping not included). Please choose this option under the PRINT EDITION score for this item, or fill out the inquiry form at checkout.
Past Performances
Sunday, October 13, 2024 — Ensemble Dal Niente performs beyond the accident of time at Constellation, Chicago, IL
February 23, 2024 — Safeeya Alblooshi and Hasan Hujairi lead beyond the accident of time, Listening for Traces: Conflict, Sound and Memory, RIZQ Art Initiative, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Sunday, January 28, 2024 — Wild Up, performs Sky Gate, ahupuaʻa, hānau ka ua, koʻu inoa, and beyond the accident of time, followed by a set featuring the music of inti figgis-vizueta, Darkness Sounding, Floating + TreePeople, Los Angeles, CA More Info
Thursday, October 12, 2023 — Leilehua Lanzilotti, Sofija Kirsanova, Jessica Leigh, Alice Hurwood, and Sophie Marcheff, Australian Premiere, the strong pulse beneath the charred earth: the musical world of Leilehua Lanzilotti, Hanson Dyer Hall, University of Melbourne, Australia
Saturday, July 1, 2023 — beyond the accident of time, performance curated and directed by Sasha Amaya & Naomi Woo in memory of the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Exclusion Act in Canada, Chinese Gardens at the Winnipeg Chinese Cultural and Community Centre, Canada
Friday, June 30, 2023 — beyond the accident of time, performance curated and directed by Sasha Amaya & Naomi Woo in memory of the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Exclusion Act in Canada, Chinese Gardens at the Winnipeg Chinese Cultural and Community Centre, Canada
Sunday, April 2, 2023 — Argus Quartet, Newman Center for the Performing Arts, University of Denver, CO
Saturday, March 25, 2023 — Argus Quartet, Arts for Life series, The Carpenter Performing Arts Center, CSULB, CA
Thursday, March 9, 2023 — Argus Quartet, ArtPower, University of California San Diego, CA
Friday, September 23, 2022 — Lisa Hall leads beyond the accident of time at IMMSANE, Utrecht, the Netherlands
Saturday, July 16, 2022 — ビヨンド・ザ・アクシデント・オブ・タイム（日本初演）演奏：アンサンブル・ノマド Ensemble NOMAD (Japan Premiere), Born Creative Festival, Tokyo, Japan
Thursday, May 26, 2022 — Chamber Music Hawaiʻi, City & County of Honolulu Civic Center, Honolulu, HI
May 6–9, 2021 — Rewire International festival for adventurous music: Acts of Air, relational sound art works enacted and performed across The Hague, Netherlands
Tuesday, April 27, 2021 — Acts of Air Workshop presented by the Concordia Electroacoustic Studies Student Association (CESSA), Montreal, Canada
Friday, March 19, 2021 — Acts of Air Workshop with Sound Making Space, London, UK
Sunday, February 7, 2021 — Acts of Air: TOMA, The Other MA (TOMA*), Southend-on-Sea, UK
Tuesday, December 1, 2020 — Acts of Air: Goldsmiths, Unit for Sound Practice Research (SPR) Goldsmiths University of London, UK
Sunday, August 9, 2020 – Monday, August 31, 2020 — 08:15, 11:02: time, memory and nuclear weapons, An online exhibition by London CND, opening on Nagasaki Day, 2020.
Thursday, July 16, 2020 (ongoing) — Acts of Air: Reshaping the urban sonic, Prepare, enact, and trace this solo version of the work as part of Un-Earthed: A festival of listening and environment
Thursday, July 16, 2020 — Launch event for Acts of Air Online Exhibit, part of Un-Earthed: A festival of listening and environment hosted by Creative Research into Sound Arts Practice (CRiSAP), a University of the Arts London research centre, based at London College of Communication, London, UK
Thursday, January 30, 2020 — DePaul Ensemble 20+ Concert Inspired by Architecture: Scores, Plans, and Paintings, DePaul University, Chicago, IL
Saturday, November 23, 2019 — Cosy Nook Ensemble, Cosy Nook, London, UK
Thursday, June 13, 2019 — Argus Quartet, Johanna Lundy, and Lanzilotti, The Noguchi Museum, Long Island City, NY
