Recently, Sound ExChange received a grant from the Max and Marian Farash
Charitable Foundation to produce its “01X Project,” a series of concerts that
aim to integrate the audience into the performance through technology and
visual art. The group — an artist collective that formed at the Eastman School
— partnered with RIT photography professor Susan Lakin
and computer science professor Joe Geigel, and Katie Verrant, a new media design student at RIT, to really push
“01X” into new interdisciplinary spaces. It’s also worth noting that “01X”
includes a great residency with ROCmusic.

From the start, this project piqued my interest — plus, Sound
ExChange has put together some really innovative,
exciting performances in the past. I had high hopes.

Sound ExChange’s Saturday night
performance at Geva’s Nextstage
— part of the launch of the “01X Project” — simply blew me away.

A string quartet — violinists Molly Germer
and Lili Sarayrah, violist
Alexander Pena, and cellist Nadine Sherman — was joined by percussionist
Kurt Fedde, and Matthew Cox adding electronic aspects
to music. Layered and evolving, each song in the group’s set really stood out
as a beautiful work. The performance’s first piece, “Roulette,” was haunting
and dark, while the second song, “Nasty Vitamins,” written by Fedde, started out slowly but continued to build and shift
— the result reminded me of a ticking clock and how time seems to just accelerate
the older we become.

But it was the third piece, “For Melissa,” also written by Fedde, that
really put this performance over the top for me. In a brief introduction, Fedde explained he was inspired by the voicemails his
friend, Melissa, would leave for him. Though the two were separated by
distance, they were still always connected, always able to hear one another’s
voice in a funny, exaggerated message. As the group launched into the song, voicemails
from Melissa and others were played over the music, resulting in this
incredibly touching moment. It started to sink in that most of the voicemails
we leave for our friends are intensely personal — sometimes using humor only
the other person would understand, or leaving an urgent message to talk about a
dramatic problem. As the song progressed, audience members were prompted to hold
up their own phones to play their voicemails, ending the piece in a chorus of disjointed
voices. The whole display of private moments accented by the emotional,
swelling tune was striking.

Before the performance, audience members were handed a sheet
instructing them to use their smartphones to visit project01x.com (which is
still live and gives details on the members of Sound ExChange),
where they could upload voice files of their name and first memory of
Rochester, and the first street intersection they crossed on their way to Geva. The information was used during the Matthew
Cox-created piece “Interscape” as video projections
of hyperlapsed videos taken from Google Maps’ street
view. Each video showed an individual’s journey to Geva,
while audio of their Rochester memory played. It was an interesting integration
of the audience into the performance — reminding us that we may come from
different places, but are all together in this particular space.

Directed by Emily Wozniak, this performance of “01X” was
tight, beautifully performed, and over far too quickly at just 50 minutes.

Though “01X” is over for now, you can still catch Sound ExChange on Wednesday, September 24, and Friday, September
26, at Rochester Contemporary. Both shows are at 7 p.m. and are free.

This article appears in Sep 17-23, 2014.