Touch the Sound
Directed by Thomas Riedelsheimer
Rivers and Tides, Thomas Riedelsheimer’s ravishing portrait of nature sculptor Andy Goldsworthy, won the Golden Gate Award for best documentary feature in 2002 and went on to become a nationwide hit. The visionary German filmmaker returns with a marvelously meditative study of another Scottish artist who creates touchingly impermanent pieces. The percussionist Evelyn Glennie, deaf since childhood, is a master improviser who conjures music from random found objects as easily as from conventional instruments. An intense and spirited collaborator, Glennie is equally at home joining a Manhattan street performer for an impromptu duet or adding her unique colors to a Japanese drum ensemble. She saves her most austere shadings, though, for a hypnotic pairing with Bay Area guitar virtuoso
Fred Frith (who wrote and performed the score for Rivers and Tides) in a raw Cologne space. Gradually and patiently, Riedelsheimer’s trance-inducing film erases the line between the cacophony of the manmade world and the elegance of the natural world. Gorgeously photographed and imbued with a sense of mystery, Touch the Sound is, above all, an ear-opener. Watching the deaf Glennie, one realizes that intention and precision are as important in the creation of music as skill and training. “It starts with listening,” notes Frith, “and it ends with listening.”
—Michael Fox
Presented in association with Other Minds.
Cost: $12