Music for 2 Cellos and 24 Televisions

Instrumentation: 2 cellos, 24 televisions
Duration: 45:40

Program Notes & reviews

San Francisco composer David Rhodes employs quite an “orchestra” for his latest piece — cellists April Guthrie and Aniela Perry and two dozen idiot boxes, carefully programmed for maximum idiocy by poet and screenwriter Brian Tuthill. All in an effort to get us to question where we stand in relation to the dream machine: “The devotion to ‘our shows’ has superseded the relevance of actual experience,” Tuthill claims. As actual experiences go, this “bombardment” is bound to be high intensity. Think of Bowie as the alien Thomas Jerome Newton, gooning out in front of a wall of televisions in Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth, and that might give you some idea. -(Davidson) Guardian

“Rhodes’ couch-potato blitzkrieg

upends our enthralling national pastimE.”

A blend of lyricism and bite spurred on the success of last year’s Crowded Fire production of Liz Duffy Adams and David Rhodes’ musical, One Big Lie. This year, Rhodes, the company’s resident composer, presents a scrappy, lo-fi extravaganza. Hauling old, donated televisions (b/w Zeniths, manual knobs) to his studio in a borrowed sedan, Rhodes and video artist Brian Tuthill rewired the assemblage to broadcast electronic music and found footage. The resulting audiovisual montage is accompanied live by cellists April Guthrie and Aniela Perry. Recalling the video art of Nam June Paik, Rhodes’ couch-potato blitzkrieg upends our enthralling national pastime. - Flavorpill

…a scrappy, lo-fi extravaganza.”

Television, to paraphrase Marx, is the opiate of the masses. Taken in large doses, television can have some sedative effects, making the sounds and images melt together in one long snooze. Composer David Rhodes, writer and film editor Brian Tuthill and cellist Aniela Perry have come together to shake you out of your cathode ray stupor. With a whole bunch of televisions (24, to be exact), two cellos, dissected found footage and original music, “Music for Two Cellos and 24 Televisions” will make you rethink your favorite form of passive entertainment. - SF Chronicle.

“…a multi-dimEnsional wall of image and

sound that distorts the viewer’s

passive relationship with television.”

Music for 2 Cellos and 24 Televisions: Crowded Fire Theater presents the Matchbox Workshop Production of David Rhodes’ new play. Rhodes musically and visually composes with rewired televisions, live cellists, electronic music, and dissected found footage to create a multi-dimensional wall of image and sound that distorts the viewer’s passive relationship with television. - Theatermania