Do you have a favorite piece or performance memory from your time with us that you'd like to share?

That would be Turbine. This was former Artistic Director Alan Harler's swansong, and it was a beautiful ending for him. Coming from an experimental theater background, I understood the process of working with choreographer Leah Stein and her company to generate choreographed gesture. This was pieced together with musical and text fragments from Byron Au Yong's score and staged across the grounds of the Philadelphia Water Works in celebration of its 250th anniversary.

The piece unfolded like a play with scenes, and there were many sections where the singers moved through the grounds and could decide what to sing and what gestures to perform at specific times and locations. I loved that it entrusted so much agency to us, so that we became active creators of the piece.

The piece ended on the promenade of the Water Works. After a singer stationed on a boat in the river had sung her solo through a handheld loudspeaker, the last word sung repeatedly by each individual singer was water. We were turning slowly through the space, each of us physically separate, individual drops of water, singing as we desired, and the effect was a sustained sussuration that evoked the gently rocking sound and motion of water.

Eventually, the sound died away and we stood in absolute silence for a moment.