From now through December 31, 2024, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine is presenting Janet Cardiff’s The Forty Part Motet, on loan from the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York City. This immersive sound experience presents a reworking of “Spem in Alium,” a 40-part choral piece composed by Thomas Tallis (ca. 1505–85). In it, the voices of 40 separately recorded choral singers are each played through 40 individual speakers, all placed in a wide oval around the edges of the room.
Visitors can experience the composition in different ways: From the center of the oval, each listener can hear the choir as a whole; by moving closer to each speaker, listeners can home in on individual voices — sometimes catching the sound of singers’ breathing, or fragments of conversations with other choir members in between songs, bringing the humanity of each celestial-sounding singer to the fore of the visitor’s experience.
According to a statement from the Cathedral, “This work exemplifies the value of listening carefully and with intention, traits that we hope might be carried outside of the Cathedral and into our everyday lives.”
The installation, which is included in the cost of admission, is in the Cathedral’s North Transept, which had been closed to the public since December 2001 when a fire caused major damage to the Cathedral’s gift shop and bookstore.
For tickets and for more info, visit www.stjohndivine.org.
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