May 28th, 2015, the Torino Jazz Festival opens at the Museum of Egyptology with Anthony Braxton’s Sonic Genome. 23:30, as we arrive, a group of musicians joins us on the escalator, playing fragments of music, repeated patterns. It’s hard to tell if they are warming up or if the performance has already started. We all end up on the top floor, our steps guided by the sounds.
The initial performance on the top balcony of the Egyptian Museum slowly evolves as the performers split into smaller ensembles and make their way through the museum, followed by members of the audience, themselves active participants in the experience.
All spaces are explored from staircases to small chambers, musicians deploy around statues and display cases, the rigid borders between performers and listeners, stage and audience, are broken and the music flows freely, creating its own space. Anthony Braxton’s experiment is all about the creation of an interactive musical environment, a living sound world. Performers and audience both play their part, improvised yet choreographed, and for a moment it feels like I am part of an ancient Egyptian ritual in the Kings Gallery…
Geoffroy Schied 