Scott will research collections at the museum and create new compositions in response, which will be performed in April at the museum. Scott will draw upon several of the Penn Museum's far-ranging collections (Babylon, Egypt, Central America, and South Asia) to create an immersive "whisper" play entitled Tonight We Tell the Secrets of the World. Under the 90-foot dome of the museum's Chinese Rotunda, a string orchestra, conductor, lighting designer, and members of the audience will bring the work to life, all guided by curatorial and research staff from the museum.
The twenty-minute work will incorporate texts from geographically and temporally distinct regions of the ancient world, all connected by the universal theme of "secrets." One body of text will tell the secrets of love; a second will tell the secrets of death; and a third will tell the secrets of God. Guided by an array of colored lights, the audience will co-create the performance by whispering these texts, many translated from lost languages, at carefully specified times and in conert with an original musical socre conducted by the ocmposer.