Featuring original music composed by: James E. Cunningham (didgeridoos and wailphones)
Glen Gillis (alto saxophone)

The Jay Critchley Incorporated exhibition opened at the Schmidt Gallery at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida, on February 4, 2016. 

The opening night’s ceremonies began with “Pilgrim Monumental” a live performance of an original composition for didgeridoo and alto saxophone, which was digitally processed through Altiverb 7 convolution reverberation software in order to reproduce the resonance from the actual Pilgrim Monument in Jay’s home town of Provincetown, Massachusetts. Its inspiration was based on the historical significance of the Pilgrim’s arrival in North America,  juxtaposed with Jay’s “Tamponumet” art, which depicts the monument constructed from non-biodegradable plastic tampon applicators that had been collected on Cape Cod beaches.

…it was followed by “Breached Wail” an original piece for wailphone (pictured below)…

…alto saxophone and pre-recorded didgeridoos, inspired by beached whales on Masschusetts and Florida shorelines.

For the exhibition opening “Breached Wail” was performed in front of the sculptural “Whale Van” …

…and a video projection of a dead adolescent sperm whale that washed up on Spanish River Beach, Boca Raton, in January 2015. 

The climax of the opening ceremony was Jay Critchley’s rooftop performance “O Breaker of Bones” with its O rekaerB fo Senob  audience responsorial and Reroot-esque immolative conclusion.

©2016

“King’s Chamber Pot,” is an original composition by Glen Gillis (alto saxophone) and James E. Cunningham (sewerphone in A).
It is an over/underture for the play “Incubator at 7 Carnes Lane,” written by Des Gallant as an adaptation of Jay Critchley’s fictional autobiography Uncle Jay.

The venue for the music and play consists of two stages inside the FAU Schmidt Gallery. Known respectively as “The Shitter” and “The Septic Theatre”, the pieces were conceived, designed, and built by students, staff, and faculty at Florida Atlantic University.

Both sets were modeled after actual performance spaces in Jay Critchley’s  Provincetown,  Massachusetts back yard.

For the majority of “King’s Chamber Pot” the musicians play from the interior recesses of their respective enclosures. Glen Gillis projects a moving melody inside the “Shitter,” and James E. Cunningham answers from the bowels of the Septic Theatre on his ABS plastic sewerphone. The piece utilizes the natural reverberation from the Schmidt Gallery as its “third” instrumentalist.

At the conclusion…James exits from the underground…

…and reveals Glen, who emerges from the King’s Chamber.

The finale features a flourish of an Irish Jig in celebration of a job well done.

“King’s Chamber Pot/Incubator at 7 Carnes Lane” performed for the Jay Critchley Roundtable Discussion, Monday, February 8th. Text/adaptation Jay Critchley and Desmond Gallant; directed by Elizabeth Price; Anna Now, Erin Cunningham; Anna Then, Lydia Nigro.

© 2016