Robert Spano, music director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, is accustomed to the white-tie-and-tails interior of the Woodruff Arts Center, so performing at the Goat Farm is a bit of a switch.
Yes, he’ll be in a 100-year-old factory, with cracked windows and no air conditioning. With goats on the property. And did we mention he might be playing piano while in an animal-head mask? That’s also a first.
But Spano, 53, is game, mostly because he’s delighted to be working with Lauri Stallings of Glo. Their multimedia collaboration is called “Cloth,” and consists of Stallings’ choreography, set to Spano’s original music, plus sculpture from Audrey Morrison and film from Micah and Whitney Stansell, all echoing in a custom-built oval performance space inside the primitive interior of Goodson Yard.
The work premieres Sept. 10 in the West Midtown arts venue, and marks the second time Spano and Stallings have joined forces. (In 2011, they worked together on “Maa,” an experimental hit that involved covering the stage at Symphony Hall with sod.)
Spano began writing “Cloth” during 10 days at the Hermitage artists colony in Englewood, Fla. Then he carried the project with him during tours of New York; Boston; Helsinki, Finland; London and Scotland. In each new city, he rented an electric piano for his hotel room, composing in the spare moments between travel and concert hall.
“No one’s heard it, but it’s been all over the place,” said Spano, speaking a few weeks before opening night.
Read more about Spano and “Cloth” here:
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