Where Is Chopin? - intermedia installation by Jarosław Kapuściński *American premiere

October 2-6, 2010

Opening hours: daily 5-9 PM with additional matinee times on Sunday from noon and on Monday through Wedensday at 12-1PM

Where Is Chopin? is an installation, in which original composition based on Chopin's  24 Preludes (Op. 28) played by the Disklavier controls a multichannel video projection showing rapt listeners. The images are a search for traces of Chopin's music in minds and faces of people from around the world.

To carry out this project, Kapuściński performed a series of personal interviews with over 100 volunteers in selected cities in countries where Chopin is hugely popular but where he personally never set foot (Tokyo, San Francisco, Wellington, Sydney, Seoul, Beijing, Istanbul, Jerusalem, Helsinki, Buenos Aires, Santiago and Mexico City). During these interviews Kapuściński performed Chopin’s preludes and discussed them with the listeners while camera operators and photographers documented the emotional reactions. The piece is a poetic re-interpretation of both Chopin’s preludes and facial expressions triggered by them.

The work will first be shown at the Warsaw Autumn Festival (September 20-26) and the Dilston Grove Gallery in London (September 24 –October 10). It was commissioned jointly by the WRO Art Center, the Warsaw Autumn Contemporary Music Festival and Stanford University for the 2010 Chopin Anniversary Year, and was co-funded by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and the Polish Cultural Institute in London.

Collaboration Credits

Photography/Videography: Lorena Alcaraz & Bernardo Arcos, Alon Bernstein, Marina Bonavento, Zhong Chen, John Edmark, Sabrina Hyde, John McRae, Bruce Osborn, Kyu-Cheol Shin, Heikki Tuuli , Constanza Garcia Ulibarri, Isil Ünal & Mehmet Erol

Editing and co-directing: David Alvarado and Jason Sussberg

Production Assistants: Victoria Chang, Michael St. Clair, Michael Zeligs

Special thanks: Justin Ankus, Jonathan and Talya Berger, Jindong Cai, Jinquin Cai, Tali Chaimsky, Hongchan Choi, Sofia Asuncion Claro, Esin Gündüz, Alexandra Hay, Jan Krawitz, Ana Lara, Javier Leichman, Patricia Martinez, Sheila Melvin, Mario Mora, Adrian Rocha Novoa, Yoshiko Osborn, Johnny Symons, Helena and Tapio Tuomela and Frank Wiens

Institutional Support:
Center for Digital Image, Dongguk University, Seoul
Conservatorium Open Academy | Sydney Conservatorium of Music,
Escuela Superior de Música, Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, Mexico City
LIPM, Recoleta Cultural Centre, Buenos Aires
New Zealand School of Music, Wellington
Sibelius Music Academy, Helsinki
Stanford Initiative for Creativity and the Arts,
Stanford University, Department of Music,
University of Chile, Conservatory of Music, Santiago