The other night I went to a concert of Choro music at The Chapel, a hidden gem of a concert venue. My friend Jere Smith, an artist in good standing at the good Shepherd Center, introduced me to this exquisitely calibrated performance space. Phenomenal acoustics and an architecture of reverential mystery: you don’t forget your listening moments here. I was completely swayed by Choro Loco and it’s dedicated cast of musicians on clarinet, accordion, guitar and triangle. I have never seen a clarinetist undulate like smoke– who knew this was a sexy instrument???
I got into that music space, where notes take color-shape and the 1930’s blend with 1910 and future-perfect and perfect-past in five languages. Remembrances of tango, waltz, polka, and sophisticated new-music grooves all interwoven into a heady eutophia — that’s utopia mixed with euphoria in case you haven’t yet been. Soon I pulled out my cell-phone, and started photographing in the low-res light. Herewith the first three prints in a new series called Choro: Listening to Music. All source material: Droid photos. Alcohol gel prints on Arches 88.
© Iskra Johnson
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