HUDSON – There will be a free public performance of a unique light and music composition at the Lightforms Art Center, 743 Columbia Street, called “Rainbows by Invention: A Journey in Choral Light” on December 1 at 7 p.m., December 2 at 5:30 p.m., and December 3 — the evening of Hudson’s Winterwalk – at 5:30 p.m. It is a collaboration between artist Nathaniel Williams, composer Don Jamison and students from the M.C. Richards Program of Free Columbia.
Five songs will be sung by a group of community singers with accompaniment by a quartet of light choreographers whose instruments project an entirely physical dance of colors. Between each of the songs there will be an improvised light interlude. The entire program will last about 30 to 40 minutes.
Behind the rear projection screen operators of the light apparatus are Else Orbe, Luther Gennert, Laura Summer and Frank Agrama.
“We are not trying to illustrate or animate but to accompany the music,” said Mr. Williams. He said this original project drew inspiration from the early 20th century musician and inventor Thomas Wilifred who invented an instrument called Clavilux, a sort of organ whose name translates as “light played by key.” But viewers of a certain age may also be reminded of the Joshua Light Shows that accompanied rock bands in the ’60s and early ‘70s.
This will be the last program in Columbia County for Mr. Williams who has been a driving force behind Free Columbia and the M. C. Richards Program. He has accepted a position at the Goetheanum Free School of Spiritual Science and seat of the General Anthroposophical Society which is located near Basel in Switzerland where he will move at the end of December 2022.
There is no entrance fee for the performance. Donations will support Free Columbia and Lightforms Art Center. All ages are welcome.
