YouTube Piece for One Performer (Gregory Charette)

Before the pandemic struck, I had been working on a virtuosic miniature for Ensemble Oerknal but like many artists around the world the project had to be postponed. Not to be subdued, Oerknal chose to take the project online and asked several composers to write ‘digital miniatures’ to be recorded and posted on YouTube in lieu. I was apprehensive at first (having seen many futile efforts to fill the void left by the absence of live performance), but then decided to use this as an opportunity to appraise live performance rather than mourn its absence.

YouTube Piece is fundamentally a critique of the absurdity of recorded live performance, and a memento of the impotency which the pandemic has inflicted on the performing arts. The piece was written for Gregory Charette, the artistic director and conductor of Oerknal, and sees him using only the keyboard of his laptop as an instrument, controlling a YouTube video of Oerknal performing (with him conducting). The score itself is laid out like a percussion solo with staff lines corresponding to laptop keys.