In Congregation the audience (of up to 80 per show) arrive at discrete locations in a city where they are given a silver sphere. They are instructed that the sphere will guide them to a location by emitting sounds that guide their journey. Simultaneously other audience members are being met at different locations and also being given similar spheres. Unknowingly all the participants are being led to one central location. As the audience members walk off holding their sonic spheres they will turn a corner to find more people also carrying spheres until the sphere carrying participants have become a congregation moving inexorably towards their common destination.

For the public, the sight of one person after another carrying a distinctive silver sonic sphere will create the sense of being in a performance that is taking place all around them, a humming electronic web of sound that will attract and engage thousands of passers-by in a strange processional science fiction ceremony. The mass of ‘singing’ spheres will be used generate an electronic musical composition at the final location with the participants being the orchestral players.

About Ray Lee

Ray Lee is an award-winning sound artist and composer. He creates spinning, whirling, and pendulous sound installations and performances that explore “circles of ether,” the invisible forces that surround us. His immersive and mesmerising works such as the world-wide hit Siren, Ethometric Museum and his monumental outdoor work Chorus aim to make contemporary music accessible and engaging for a wide audience. Siren toured the world with significant British Council support. Ethometric Museum won him the 2012 British Composer of the Year for Sonic Art. Force Field was awarded an honorary mention in the 2008 Prix Ars Electronica. He is a Professor of Sound Art at Oxford Brookes University and an associate artist of OCM (Oxford Contemporary Music).