Brendan Landis – ContaQt + Evan Ziporyn + Friends - Poppy 88

"An amazing journey through the the sonic ethers of planet earth....it feels like the world itself was singing..." – Terry Riley, June 24, 2023

On June 24th, 2023, to celebrate Terry Riley's 88th birthday, ContaQt and MIT Sounding presented a global telematic event that resonated – literally - worldwide. At the stroke of midnight EDT, a diverse community of 88 individuals, spread across 60 locations in 23 countries and 6 continents came together online to play music with one another, live and in real-time. With no pre-recorded material, no click tracks, no safety nets or contingency plans, together they performed Poppy 88, a collective composition arranged by Evan Ziporyn, inspired by - and based on - Riley's 1968 recording, Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band

The livestreamed concert pushed the boundaries of virtual telematic performance, showcasing the transformative power of artistic collaboration combined with smart technology to transcend structural and geographical barriers. While previous live telematic performances have involved larger ensembles, with groups of musicians clustered in 2-12 transmitting stations, this performance distinguished itself by originating from a significantly larger number of locations, 60 in all.

This creative repurposing of technology is very much in the spirit of Terry Riley’s original piece. In the 1960’s, Riley utilized tape loops – originally a DIY ‘hack’ of reel-to-reel - to create distant canonic layers of melody: his ‘Phantom Band.’ For this performance, in 2023, the ensemble similarly repurposed the inherent limitations of streaming audio – i.e., physical distance and varying data rates – to conjure similarly complex layered textures.

This global virtual event brought together musicians from Athens, Berlin, Brussels, Dublin, Istanbul, New York City, Pretoria, São Paulo, San Francisco, Tokyo, Toronto, Warsaw, and more. From Mallacoota, in southeast Australia, to Raufarhöfn, in northeast Iceland, and 58 other locations in between, musicians from a wide range of genres and backgrounds used Audiomovers’ ListenTo to stream their sound to Wawken, Saskatchewan, where Canadian composer/sound artist Jeff Morton mixed and retransmitted their sounds back to them – and the world – in real time.

After watching the performance from Mito, Japan, Terry Riley himself joined the livestream to greet the musicians, expressing his profound appreciation: "It felt like the earth itself were singing. You are my community." Listening to the recording almost a year later, he added: “A year has gone by since I last heard it. It is an amazing journey through the sonic ethers of planet Earth. So many awesome musicians were involved. Also, the technical support was amazing without which it could never have happened. I am deeply honored and moved by the efforts of all my music brothers and sisters who contributed their efforts and artistry to make this almost impossible dream a success!"