St. Thomas students and David Means play their instruments around the tower. The Tower Project was the brainchild of musician, composer and teacher David Means, who acted as an artist in residence for the piece’s performance on Sept. 27 in the Schoenecker Center Performance Hall. (Dom Tritchler/The Crest) 
Anthony Cox plays the cello during his solo. (Dom Tritchler/The Crest) 
George Cartwright plays the electric guitar during his solo. (Dom Tritchler/The Crest) 
Senior Liam Wallace plays the congas during quartet one of the concert. (Dom Tritchler/The Crest)
The University of St. Thomas owns about 150 identical music stands, according to music department chair Douglas Orzolek. Each rests at about 4 feet high, is made of thin black metal and contains space for one or two sheets of music at a time to be read by a single musician.
The Tower Project, a nearly 10-foot tall geometric structure covered with various printed-out symbols, pictures and patterns and dotted with ping-pong-sized styrofoam balls jutting out from the sides, is a slightly more complicated way of displaying music.
Oh, and there’s only one of it.
The Tower Project is the brainchild of musician, composer and teacher David Means, who acted as an artist in residence for the piece’s performance on Sept. 27 in the Schoenecker Center Performance Hall. The audience clustered into the hall’s raised seating for a night of experimental and free-spirited performances, beginning with three improvisational solos before featuring two interpretations of the eponymous tower.
The Tower Project is made up of foam core panels arranged nine-by-nine vertically with a hole in the center, meant to be played by four “courageous” musicians who improvise while reading a variety of signs and images inscribed on the structure, according to Means. These include several forms of musical notation, a mix of colorful geometric patterns and photographs of buildings or scenery meant to evoke a mood or method of playing for the performer.
“I was just much more comfortable viewing the visual world, dealing with things like color, shape, format of music, five-line staff and clef, and then even thinking about that in the abstract,” Means said.
Each side of the tower is meant to be read by one musician. The first performance came from St. Thomas musicians sophomore AJ Rahm on saxophone, senior Liam Wallace on percussion and sophomore Alejandro Vega on vocals, guitar and audio effects. The second performance included St. Thomas emerging media professor John Keston on piano, Anthony Cox on cello and George Cartwright on guitar; all three also each performed a solo at the night’s beginning.
Means stood at the center of both performances, playing a recorder, cuing digital effects and sometimes simply tapping out beats with a thin metal wire, the same kind holding up the styrofoam balls on every side of the structure. Means’ playful tappings had the effect of making the suspended balls wobble, giving the impression that the tower itself was pulsing along with the rhythm.
Vega said that the maestro’s presence was felt, even on the other side of the performance hall.
“I always feel his positivity,” Vega said. “Just even sitting across from him, seeing his face, you can see how into it he is. You start to take the risks you wanted to take because he’s so into it that you have to give that same energy back, or you’re not doing him justice.”
Rahm, however, had a trickier line of sight. Facing the tower with his back to the audience, he was flying blind.
“Normally when I’m playing and you’re doing a jazz solo, you can feed off the audience,” Rahm said, “But this time I had no idea what they were thinking; I was just hoping for the best.”
Rahm’s best produced results, even if he had to do more improvising than intended to get there.
“David made a key for how to interpret some of the symbols, but I forgot them, so I made my own interpretations,” Rahm said, “This symbol means play slow; this symbol means play fast. And overall I tried to make a cohesive sound with the group, and that meant feeding off other players.”
The way that the performers built on each other’s ideas was visible, albeit not always expected.
Wallace and Rahm traded rhythms back and forth during the more energetic portions of the piece, and the other performers allowed space for Vega’s vocals to take the spotlight during its quieter, more hesitant moments.
Not bad for what Rahm said amounted to less than one full rehearsal. The student trio’s time to practice together was interrupted by technical issues — not to mention the fact that they got distracted watching Means and his band record. However, Rahm said this gave them “a lot of inspiration” for their performance.
Cox called the recorded performance “really raucous” in comparison with the more subtle live version. The latter performance was no less creative, though, as Cartwright produced unique sounds with purposefully hard plucks of the guitar and Keston created a variety of ambient effects through a modular skiff.
“I noticed John and I seemed to follow each other almost like a standard rhythm section,” Cox said, “I could hear we were kind of matching tones and textures, but it’s not something that we sit and say, ‘OK, I’m going to do this, and then you do this and this.’ It’s about listening, and it’s the process of knowing when to respect the silence and (when to) be active.”
All the while, the enigmatic tower stood in the center of the space, its stillness reflecting upon the energy of the musicians bopping, swaying and swapping instruments around it.
Sophomore Lealand Vettleson said that he enjoyed the opportunity to watch the musicians’ improvisation skills on display.
“Maybe music is supposed to be not understandable sometimes, and maybe that was the message. I don’t know,” Vettleson said.
As a music minor and piano player, Vettleson said that he particularly enjoyed watching Keston play, though the opportunity to see his friend, Rahm, perform stole the show.
“It was also really fun to see my friend jump 3 feet into the air,” Vettleson said.
Means had been considering the idea of a “performance architecture” piece, but it was only when he showed his prototype to Keston in December of last year that Keston suggested performing it in the modern, well-furnished confines of the soon-to-be-finished Schoenecker Center, making use of a College of Arts and Sciences grant to bring the idea to fruition.
Means is no stranger to performance halls, though. He has been involved in the experimental music scene since the 1960s, creating numerous works that combine graphic, musical and architectural elements and have been performed around the world, including in China, Germany and New York City, according to his biography for the Roulette, an alternative music space he co-founded in 1978.
Vega had “no clue” of Means’ involvement in creating the Roulette, his favorite avant-garde space, before joining the project. Additionally, he said that Means’ various experiences — as a musician, architect and teacher — gave him inspiration for his own musical journey.
“He has so much story and so much to contribute: just so many ideas,” Vega said, “Even just as someone that doesn’t have the fully traditional background — like, I still can’t read music very well — it’s just really affirming to see how he’s gone through different iterations and … then you combine all of your experiences to make something that is you, and then give that to others.”
Giving to others was Means’ focus in his later role as an associate professor at Metro State University, where he formed lasting connections with Keston and Cox, both former students.
Cox said he was inspired by Means’ experimentalism, but ultimately took his career in a more standardized direction. After performing the Tower Project, however, he said that he hopes to discuss more collaboration with Means and combine the two schools of thought.
“It was really enjoyable,” Cox said. “I didn’t want to stop.”
Kevin Lynch can be reached at lync1832@stthomas.edu.