Hitting Things, Saying Things

Composer Sean Griffin has created large and small-scale concert works, collaborative sound and video installations, film scores, and many projects in between. While in residence at EMPAC, Griffin created and then presented Hitting Things, Saying Things, an evening of performances that spans work that Griffin refers to as “percussion theater.” These staged compositions use ploys such as an aurally driven, virtuosic game of pattycake, theatricalized misuse of household objects, and other dissolutions of music performance into the terrain of theater.

Performers included Don Nichols, Greg Stewart, and Aiyun Huang and the show featured the premiere of a new work for Huang, an acclaimed soloist from Montreal whose theatricality as a performer blends music with theater. Encompassing many languages, styles, media, and forms, Griffin states that his unique compositional works “rely on interdisciplinary incongruities positioned at the intersection of sound, image, performance, and the archive.” His works have been commissioned and presented internationally; Griffin lives and works in Los Angeles.