Can we help you?
2009
From the 21st-28th a different choir, drawn from the diverse city of of Rotterdam will stand outside the main City hall each day. In the morning rush from 8 to 9am, at every quarter past the hour as the bells sound, the choir will sing an offering to those who pass by, work and enter the building. At precisely 8.30 in the middle of the performance, the City Hall will open its front door for the beginning of the day.
Written in the traditions of prayer music, the Choir will sing a prayer to no God, deity or saint, but an offering to all those, in whatever situation or circumstance that will ever come to hear it. With no audible words expressed by their voices, the offering ends upon a simple question to the public- 'Can We Help You?'. A question that may seem mundane or even ridiculous, nether the less is a question that shapes all such institutions and areas of life. It is for all such spaces, from a City Hall to School, Hospital to Shopping Centre, Public or Personal space, for wherever and whoever in the world that piece is sung and heard by. However, where and who this question is sung by will both alter and retain a universal message.