Interview: Kristin Chambers
Turning a 1,000-foot wide valley into a stringed instrument is not typically on every musical craftsman’s resume, but for William Close, it was only the beginning.
Making his way to the finals on the popular reality show America’s Got Talent, Close has constructed over 50 custom handmade musical gadgets, showcasing sensational performances with the “earth harp,” the largest stringed instrument in the world. The earth harp was appropriately titled after Close built it across the Illinois landscape in 1999, allowing architecture to become the instrument. Seattle’s Space Needle, the Grand Theater in Shanghai and a permanent installation at Cirque du Soleil’s show “Ka” in Las Vegas have all been converted into earth harps, along with hundreds of locations around the world, posing infinite musical possibilities.
Each episode displayed his passion through performance, violin resin chalking his cotton gloves to transform everything from classical music to pop hits. After mashing it up in finals with popular rock band One Republic, Close was named third after comedian Tom Cotter and the Olate Dogs.
Though he was disappointed that a set of dancing pups took the million-dollar win after he had been named the overall favorite throughout the season, Close said he is excited for the future, and was able to catch up with Ignition on what that holds.
How did you get involved in America’s Got Talent?
My home and studio were lost in the 2007 wildfires up in the hills of Malibu, so I have been rebuilding instruments ever since. A lot of the instruments that were seen on the show were pretty much brand new. The show reached out to me; they were interested in what I did and my wife actually picked up the email and called and made sure I went to the audition and everything, so I have her to thank for it.
You had an interesting mix of music going. How did you choose the songs that you performed?
I’m always looking for that fusion of music that is powerful and epic and emotional, so whether it is a piece of classical music or a piece of classic rock, or for the finale we did a mash-up with classical music. [It had] the melody from a U2 song and the vocals were a song about America, so we have been doing a lot of the mashing up of stuff, which I like.
How would you describe your time on the show?
I had a great experience. It was a lot of hard work but it was very rewarding. When you are creating for that show you aren’t just creating for the theatre and the audience, you are actually creating for the cameras, so that was the first time I had done that and it was a lot of fun actually building a musical experience for film. I think it came across really well.
It’s a little bit of a sad day around here because we were beaten out by the dogs. A lot of people were pissed, but what can you do?
Yeah, how did you take it when you found out you were eliminated from the competition?
It was disappointing. I kind of wish [the judges] hadn’t said all of that stuff. They were like, ‘Oh yeah, you should win,’ and it kind of got our hopes up and then we were so pissed.
Sounds like a tease.
Yeah it wasn’t right, but whatever. It is what it is. I’m really happy with all of the great response and a lot of people out there know about me now, so that’s exciting. There was a lot of emotion, but now I’m coming back in action.
How did you get involved in architectural art?
I went to the Art Institute in Chicago, and started combining interests of music and sculpture and starting creating smaller pieces like turning a pipe into a stringed instrument and just was playing some interesting strange instruments like bagpipes and lots of percussion from all over the world. That became the initial studying that I did. And it went from there where I started building bigger harps, having bigger concepts, which eventually lead up to the earth harp.
Did you grow up playing music?
Yeah I played in bands and we played out in clubs and stuff. Smoking was still allowed in clubs at the time so I really didn’t want to play there. I wanted to start thinking of what I could do in theaters and museums and venues like that. I just can’t deal with the smoke.
Not a smoker I take it.
Exactly.
There was a lot of inspiration from big installation artists that I was studying and it made me start to think bigger in terms of what is the potential for an instrument. I began exploring what happens when you stretch a string 10 feet, and 20 feet, and 30 feet. And then I was having some success doing some work performing for different organizations and was given the opportunity to come up with the concept for a fairly well known arts and science organization. That is when I came up with the idea of actually stringing a valley. The first earth harp basically was a series of resonating chambers about the size of grand pianos that mounted to one side of the valley and then I ran the strings about 1,000 feet to the other side. So it literally turned the valley into the instrument, so that’s where it gets its title of the earth harp.
Where was the valley located?
South of Chicago near where I was living in 1999. After that I was asked to bring the earth harp to the Field Museum in Chicago and actually strung the museum, which lead to the next installation. The third installation of it was at Winter Garden at the World Trade Center. That was really beautiful in there; that was in 2000 that was the last performance series before the towers came down.
And you build a new instrument for every location that you played in the show?
Yeah, every time there was a different set-up. I developed over 50 other instruments that are unique and wild. Spinning drums, drum orbs (balls of drums played by dancers), the aquatar, which is basically a three-necked guitar sculpture that within it has guitar, sitar and bass. So it’s really fun for a multi-instrumentalist. On the finals we had the chime swords, which are basically the chime pieces that the dancers are aerialists were working with, the long-bow, which is one of the free-standing earth harps and the wing harp, so that’s a few of them and there are lots of other ones.
Was that your own crew playing alongside you with those instruments?
Yeah, they are fantastic.
If there was anywhere you could set up an instrument such as an earth harp, where would it be?
Well I love stringing outside of buildings and I love the idea of stringing maybe some of the great things in the world, like the pyramids or the Eiffel Tower or the Great Wall in China.
Are you building more instruments as time goes on or are you just concentrating on the ones that you have?
I’m always inventing stuff. I’m working a lot with fashion in music, so a lot of wearable instruments.
Have you thought of collaborating with other artists?
Yeah, I would like to collaborate with some big artists. For the final show I played with One Republic and that went really well, and I think it just shows the idea that if I was able to work with U2 or Sting or someone like that I could really build some beautiful stuff with the earth harp and the music they create.
And you just had a baby as well?
Yes, in June we had our first, whose name is Phoenix.
Congrats! More big things in the future to come?
Definitely a lot of fun stuff coming up. I’m going to do the live show for AGT in Vegas for about a month and then just a bunch of other single dates and some international stuff.
See ya at the pyramids, Mr. Close.
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