On Stacked, India Gailey’s cello swoops through a series of intricately layered melodies, playing with the ideas of delay, looping, and distortion. On screen, we see shadows of her mood-lit image stacked on top of each other to match the continuously unfolding music, reflecting its wave-like motion.
The piece was one of the last works composer and guitarist Andrew Noseworthy wrote as a Master’s student at New York University. It was initially written for a fellow student’s recital, specifically to highlight her electric cello and with the support of her guitarist father, who was particularly excited by the possibility of uniting the cello and pedals.
In Gailey’s performance, the cello is less focused on the crunchy distortion of pedals, instead centering on the depth of the music. Gailey and Noseworthy met two years ago, and have been working on Stacked for several months. Noseworthy wanted to highlight Gailey’s natural solo practice of improvisation and vibrant dynamic range in their final product, bringing her strengths to the music and exploring new territories. The result comes in the form of this House Music Series video, with the reflective visuals created by composer and multidisciplinary artist Phong Tran.
The central idea of Stacked—convergence and divergence—plays into our search for balance, especially as we navigate uncertainty. This is Noseworthy and Gailey’s first collaboration with Metropolis Ensemble; Tran’s work was featured in the House Music Series this past September. — Vanessa Ague
Episode: 70Date: December 3, 2020Artist: India Gailey, Phong TranInstrumentation: Cello, Pedal Effects, VisualsWork: "Stacked"Composer: Phong TranMore from House Music