This September, two music powerhouses will come together for an unprecedented event at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. 3 time Oscar-nominated composer, songwriter, and social activist J. Ralph and iconic singer-songwriter Sting will be honored for their musical and philanthropic contributions to American culture. Occurring on September 8th, the event will feature an intimate performance by Sting of "The Empty Chair" as well as the world premiere of J. Ralph's Evolocean, a groundbreaking aleatoric symphonic piece featuring the London Symphony Orchestra and recorded at the legendary Abbey Road Studios with over 150 players. The ceremony will also include a discussion with the two artists about philanthropy, moderated by legendary journalist and news anchor Dan Rather.
The discussion will be preceded by a donation ceremony of significant items by Sting and J. Ralph for the museum's permanent national collection. Sting will donate his 1978 Fender Stratocaster, which he played at Amnesty International's "The Secret Policeman's Other Ball" in 1981 and throughout his first world tour as a solo artist. J. Ralph will donate the original sheet music, lyrics, and recordings for Evolocean, "The Empty Chair," and other special artifacts.
Sting and J. Ralph recently teamed on "The Empty Chair," an evocative song written for the documentary "Jim: The James Foley Story," about American photojournalist James "Jim" Foley who was kidnapped in Syria and went missing for two years before his tragic death sent shockwaves around the globe and introduced much of the world to ISIS. The song's Academy Award nomination added to the astounding list of 7 Oscar nominations received between the two musicians.
Evolocean is a groundbreaking aleatoric, conceptual performance piece for orchestra, choir, and child exploring mankind's effect on the planet. Recorded live with over 150 players, it is performed by The London
Symphony Orchestra, The London Voices Choir, and J. Ralph's 6-month-old daughter, Theodora Ralph. As a conceptual piece, it is designed to foster an evolving, living dialog between mankind and its surroundings with a primary focus on raising awareness and money for species extinction and oceanic preservation.
As Evolocean is improvisational in nature, each performance is unique and will never be performed the same way twice. There is no conductor and no traditional sheet music. A clock counting down from six minutes is used as a global time reference for the piece representing the 6th extinction period or Anthropocene extinction. Each player of the orchestra is given the same 4 notated musical themes in 4 different keys as well as an accompanying set of instructions describing the 6 thematic movements occurring at the specific times during the piece. The 6 movements of Evolocean are: (I) - Birth, (II) - Exploration, (III) - Disruption, (IV) - Revocation, (V) - Extinction, (VI) - Rebirth.
Part of the main architecture of Evolocean is that before each performance, each musician must pick a number in the last movement of the piece representing the exact moment each player is to stop playing. As players and sound continue to drop out and disappear unpredictably throughout the performance, Evolocean is actually "dying" as it is being performed. This marks the first time in the 113 year history of the
London Symphony Orchestra that an experimental piece like this was ever performed.
Celebrating live music and the beauty of life's unpredictability, Evolocean explores new ways to write and record music and further ways to dynamically translate emotional intention in the rawest most direct way possible.
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