Elevator Music (2017)

walking tour, mixed ensembles and electronics

A musical walking tour exploring the architecture and history of Buffalo's Silo City through sound. This hour-long experience is a collaboration with the tour company Explore Buffalo.

Visitors began the experience with an a capella historical synopsis of the grain industry in Buffalo and the use (and disuse) of elevators to store grain, and from there moved to a large elevator space where grains would have come down chutes to be transported. The tour moved outside to a surprise view of a saxophonist many stories up in the elevator, and then a view into the old furnaces to roast and malt grain (another performer played electronics and suspended percussion from its balconies that evoked the sounds of furnaces). The tour concluded in the most-known elevator, Marine A, with performances from the composer on piano and drums in a sung contemporary history of the elevator’s use; followed by an ephemeral vocal trio with whirly tubes and a reverb of over 15 seconds.

Tours ran on the hour throughout one September day.

Performers: Sally Bozzuto, Mark Fromm, David Bernabo, Jake Swanson, Nathan Hall.