Luminesce

Luminesce by the Invenio Singers, performed at the Melbourne Recital Centre as part of the centre’s A Thousand Sounds series, combines light art and beautiful vocals to create an impressive and stunning performance that is both artistic and musical genius.

The collaboration between composer Gian Slater and video artist Robert Jarvis is a light show of sorts that is connected to the voices of the singers on stage. The production won first place at the 2015 International Visual Music Awards, and it’s not hard to see why. Jarvis’ specially designed software program, Voxstripe, transforms each of the seven singers’ voices into visual patterns projected onto their white draped outfits.

The result? An ethereal mix of visual art and music.

The visual effects coming from the back of the Salon at the Recital Centre projected onto each of the singers as their voices rose and fell to the melody and beat of the pieces being performed. Each composition was different from the next, the audience treated to a range of tunes: from complete melodies created using just with the singers’ voices to beautiful harmonising vocals over backing tracks. Each of these accompanied by different visual patterns centred on each individual singer. The singers moved around between pieces, allowing for variety in how the visual effects were projected and the way their voices floated out into the audience.

The range of vocals each singer had was astounding, their melodies melded together wonderfully along with the visual patterns that appeared on their white outfits and on the wall behind them. Speaking as someone with no real musical or visual art experience, this 50 minute performance was extremely well produced and an enchanting delight to watch. The combination of the coloured lights with the singers’ voices was reminiscent of digital moving imagery, but Luminesce was different in that the singers were the canvas for the light effects, but also the agents behind the music. 

Luminesce by the Invenio Singers  
Melbourne Recital Centre, Corner Southbank Boulevard and Sturt Street, Southbank
Thursday, 18 May 2017
inveniosingers.com