Tesla: Light, Sound, Color is a 90-minute stage production with live physics demonstrations, digital animation, an original string and electronic musical score, and contemporary choreography. The project is the culmination of a 2016 Oregon Community Foundation Creative Heights award.

Hailed as a genius of the industrial age, Serbian immigrant Nikola Tesla continues to captivate the public with his electrical inventions that includes alternating current, contributions to radio transmission, the Tesla coil, as well as 280 other additional patents. The production brings Tesla’s enigmatic story to the stage by combining the science of his inventions with mixed media representations of his complex and tumultuous life. Harmonic Laboratory brings original artwork and broad collaborations together with content by Brad Garner, Jeremy Schropp, Jon Bellona, and John Park. Collaborators include: University of Oregon Physicist Stan Micklavzina, Delgani String Quartet, Eugene Ballet Company dancers, and visual artist Julia Oldham.

I composed six new original works for string octet (four violins, two violas, two cellos) and fixed electronics. One of the works, Currents, includes live Tesla Coils driven by MIDI messages. A second work, Broadcasting, uses FM transmitters to send audio to handheld radios carried by the eight dancers on stage.