Photo Story: Alien broadcasts and Indian tabla performances give festivalgoers time to relax

Matthew Jacobi

Cellist and composer Lia Kohl and Trinidadian tabla player Roshni Samlal perform during the annual True/False Film Fest

At Calvary Episcopal Church, the public found themselves listening to meditative cello improvisations, alien broadcasts and tabla performances in the atmosphere of the church during True/False Film Fest on Saturday, March 2, 2024.

A woman is seen blowing into a melodica and using her fingers to press on the keys. Cellist, composer, and sound artist Lia Kohl uses a melodica for her composition on Saturday, March 2, 2024 at Calvary Episcopal Church in Columbia, Mo. She is based in Chicago and focuses on solo composition and performance, installation, improvisation and collaboration.

Kohl is using a soundboard to create sounds on the stage of the church. Kohl said she used a lot of field recordings during her performance. “I’ve gotten really interested in the sounds that humans make that I find to be musical, but aren’t sort of intended that way,” Kohl said. “There was a car alarm and some turn signal sounds, and a sound of a light in a tennis court.”

A wide shot of the church with a woman sitting in front of a cross on the stage creating meditative sounds. People are shown in pews on both sides. The Sanctuary Showcase’s goal was for audience members to relax and meditate within the vaulted wood ceilings of the church as they listened to the performances. Kohl said this was her second year performing at True False Fest. “I played here last year with my friend Macy Stewart and her band, and [True/False] invited me back this year as a soloist,” Kohl said.

A woman is shown playing a cello. A mic is shown clipped to the bridge of the cello to capture the sound. Kohl played the cello for parts of her performance, which was half improvisation. “I find improvisation easier than playing music that’s totally decided on because then I can play it wrong,” Kohl said. “Improvisation is more like a conversation with yourself or someone else.”

A second woman is shown sitting the stage in front of two tabla drums and is turned towards a MacBook, playing background music. Roshni Samlal is a New York-based Trinidadian tabla player. Her performance was also a mixture of improvisation. “Any classical music is both,” Samlal said. “It is structured because things run on scales that are a part of the system […] tabla runs in cycles and it’s fixed. So, each cycle being fixed, you can improvise as much as you can, but the ways that you improvise are cannon as well.”

A detailed shot of the tabla drums with two mics angled towards them to amplify the sound. A MacBook is shown in the corner of the picture. As a tabla player, tabla tradition is extremely important to Samlal. “I play a lot of repertoire from the classical traditions,” Samlal said, “and that’s a huge reference in the acoustic side of the music, but I’m also Trinidadian and Indo-Caribbean music history is also a part of what I try to incorporate.”

The audience is shown sitting in the church pews watching the musicians and meditating with the music. Some of the beats that Samlal played included dub beats and silicon beats that are from the Caribbean. “It’s like interlaying both traditions together,” Samlal said. “And also I just love electronic music, and that kind of becomes the tool for hybridizing the two worlds.”

Edited by Hannah Schuh | hschuh@themaneater.com

Copy edited by Sterling Sewell | ssewell@themaneater.com

Edited by Scout Hudson | shudson@themaneater.com