PROGRAM

October 4, 2008

Palladio

By Ben Neill and Bill Jones, adapted from the novel by Jonathan Dee

"It's great to see a piece that's experimental and also really works".Jonathan Demme

Palladio was premiered at the New Territories Festival 2005 in Glasgow, Scotland And at the Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theater at Symphony Space, New York, 2005 Artistic passion and commercial greed collide in a new digitally created narrative/performance format that fluidly mixes sampled commercials, live action cinematic drama and live music. Palladio asks the question, "In a world where the line between culture and commerce is increasingly blurred, can you really sell out anymore?" Based on the 1998 novel Palladio by New York Times Magazine writer Jonathan Dee, Neill and Jones' new media performance work tells the story of an unlikely romantic triangle set against the backdrop of the often conflicting worlds of music, art and advertising.

Coming out of the world of DJ/VJ culture, Neill and Jones' networked instrumental ensemble plays the video and music simultaneously. The musical score includes Neill's evocative instrumental composition as well as songs with lyrics written by lance Jensen, the award-winning creative director. Mikel Rouse, a note composer/performer and creator of the TV talk show opera Dennis Cleveland, plays a leading role as an actor and singer.

Palladio's video component, projected onto a movie theater screen, includes commercial samples seamlessly merged with live-action footage as the lead characters played by Rouse, Zoe Lister-Jones and Cort Garretson are digitally transported into an environment created from the ads portrayed in the story.

Ben Neill, internationally known composer, performer and inventor of the mutantrumpet, a hybrid electro-acoustic instrument, has been a pioneer in the use of interactive computer technologies in live performance. Neill's music has been recorded on Six Degrees, Universal/Verve, and Astralwerks. Visual artist Bill Jones has exhibited in galleries and museums for over two decades. He is also a noted writer and editor who has founded a number of periodicals including The Independent Film and Video Monthly and ArtByte the Magazine of Digital Culture.

Neill and Jones have collaborated on performance works and exhibitions since 1996. Their previous projects have been presented in festivals, concert halls, clubs, galleries and museums internationally. Palladio expands the techniques they have successfully developed together, in the context of DJ/VJ culture into a full-length cinematic and dramatic work. More information at: http://www.palladiomovie.com

October 11, 2008

Phoenix Park (A Poet's Journey)

Composer by David Strickland from a libretto by Ilsa Gilbert
Staging by Tom O'Horgan
Presented by Downtown Music Productions, produced by Mimi Stern-Wolfe

Phoenix Park is about an Irish poet, Sean is dead. Booze killed him. He is mourned by his family and suddenly rises from his coffin and relives his struggles with writing and brings back the characters of his former life, friends, family, wife, and his strained relations with them.

Note: A more detailed explanation of the scenes and characters will be provided at the time of the screening.

Ilsa Gilbert, librettist is a poet, playwright and lyricist who has had over 60 productions An award-winning poet, her poems have been published nationally and internationally in literary magazines, chapbooks and anthologies. Her poetry has been set by over 35 composers as art songs and chamber works, as well as in choreography and dance. Notable operas are The Bundle Man with composer Marshall Coid, Auto Da Fe with composer Mark N. Grant, The First Word with composer Katrina Cameron, Songs of Revelations and Secrets with composer C. Colby Sachs and choreography by Holly Handman. Ilsa Gilbert is a founder of PEN women's Literary Workshop. Her work has been performed in the U.S. and internationally.

David Grant Strickland, composer, is the Director of Music at the Church of the Epiphany in Gramercy Park. His work with lyricist Ellen Schwartz has been acclaimed by The New York Times, The New York Post and The Daily News. Phoenix Park was awarded a challenge grant from the City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs. Other grants he received include BMI, the Dramatists Guild, the Andrew Mellon Fund and the Margaret Fairbanks Jory Program.

Tom O'Horgan, stage director, is a charter member of LaMama, where he directed The Tempest, Arturo Ui and Fernando Arrabal's The Architect and The Emperor of Assyria. On Broadway, Tom O'Horgan is known for his direction of the original musicals Hair, Lenny and Jesus Christ Superstar. He directed Berlioz' Les Troyennes for the Vienna State Opera, Leonard Bernstein's Mass at the Kennedy Center, Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat at Carnegie Hall and Paul Dresher's minimalist opera Power Failure. His film credits include Rhinoceros with Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder and Futz.

October 18

Dong Dong Touching the Moons

Concept, music and direction by Jin Hi Kim
Choreographed and performed by Yin Mei and Parul Shah
Animation and images by Tennessee Rice Dixon
Multimedia interactive design and computer programming by Alex Noyes
Music performed by: Samir Chatterjee (Indian tabla)
Kwon-Soon Kang (Korean kagog singer)
Jin Hi Kim (Korean electric komungo, changgo)

Western technology meets Asian mythology in Dong Dong Touching the Moons, a collaboration between Korean, Indian and American artists working in the fields of music, dance and multimedia. Dong Dong Touching the Moons juxtaposes traditional Asian dance and musical forms with cutting-edge technology to create a truly cross-cultural work both in form and subject. It celebrates the eastern concept of the moon as a female force that counterbalances the male energy of the sun, while relating to Western science's ongoing exploration of the solar system as the "last great frontier".

Jin Hi Kim's newly developed electric komungo (Korean 4th century fretted-board Zither), electric changgo drum, Korean court-style kagok lyric singing, and Indian tabla drumming combine with digital music technology. Dancers interact with the music, wearing wireless velocity-sensitive midi triggers that activate animations and digital imagery of outer space, planetary movement and solar systems.

Dong Dong Touching the Moons was commissioned by The Kitchen, subsequently performed at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington, DC, and won the Wolff Ebermann Prize 2002 of the International Theater Institute/New Opera Conference in Munich, Germany. The project received major support from the National Endowment for the Arts in a consortium with MASS MoCa. Leadership support has also been provided by the Inroads Program of Arts International, a division of the Institute of International Education, made possible by a special initiative of the Ford Foundation.

"Jin Hi Kim's unique vision blends science fiction images, state-of-the-art technology, ancient mythology and timeless music and dance traditions. No other artist is doing work quite like this, and she does it with superb style. Kim performs brilliantly and evocatively on an amplified komungo." Joseph McLellan, The Washington Post

Jin Hi Kim is a composer/komungo virtuoso who has brought about a deeper appreciation for the cultural contribution of Koreans. He works has been presented at major venues in the United States, Europe and Asia, including Lincoln Center, the Royal Festival Hall in London, the Brooklyn Academy of Music Next Wave Festival, the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Warsaw Autumn Festival in Poland, Asian Pacific Festival in New Zealand, Festival of New Music in Holland, Musique Action Festival in France, Moers New Jazz Festival in Germany and at the Vancouver Jazz Festival. Her commissioned piece Eternal Rock for Komungo and orchestra was premiered at Carnegie Hall. She received commissions from the Kronos Quartet and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. She has received multiple awards including the Rockefeller Foundation, the Mary Flagler Cary Trust, Meet the Composer, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
More information at: http://www.jinhikim.com

October 25, 2008

Waking in New York

Composed by Elodie Lauten from the poetry of Allen Ginsberg
Performance at 14 St Y Theater, June 2001,
produced by Downtown Music Productions.
Performers: Mark Duer, baritone, as Allen Ginsberg
Laura Wolfe, mezzo-soprano, as Compassion
Tyler Azelton, soprano and Sherrita Duran, soprano, as Freedom

Waking in New York is about experiencing daily life in New York through the eyes of Ginsberg, pictured in the later part of his life. He is in a constant dialogue with his muses, Freedom and Compassion. He tells stories about the real people in his neighborhood, from the junkies and the homeless to the yuppies. Ginsberg expresses his love of life in a down-to-earth, occasionally satirical vision of the world, alternating with moments of deep emotion and classic lyricism. There is an uplifting element in Ginsberg's tolerant and all-inclusive vision of the city with its exciting jaggedness, its energy.

Lauten met Ginsberg in 1973 when at 22, she first came to New York. She stayed at his East Village apartment, and occasionally accompanied him in his public readings. He introduced her to Buddhism with the chanting of mantras and meditation and became somewhat of a mentor. Because of her deep understanding of Ginsberg's personality and philosophy, she felt strongly about a melodic setting as opposed to narrative over music, as others had done before: in Waking in New York, every word is sung, even the most unlikely.

Allen Ginsberg was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1926, the son of the well-known lyric poet and teacher Louis Ginsberg. As a student at Columbia College in the 1940s, he began a close friendship with William Burroughs, Neal Cassady, and Jack Kerouac, and became associated with the Beat movement and the San Francisco Renaissance in the 1950s. After jobs as a laborer, sailor, and market researcher, Ginsberg published his first book of poetry, Howl and Other Poems, in 1956. Howl overcame censorship trials to become one of the most widely read poems of the century, translated into more than twenty-two languages, a model for younger generations of poets from West to East. A member of the American Institute of Arts and Letters and co-founder of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute, the first accredited Buddhist college in the Western world, Ginsberg lived on New York's Lower East Side. He died in April 1997 at age 70.

Elodie Lauten, artistic director of L.E.S.P.A., has taught on the composition faculty at NYU and has 20 years of experience as a composer of classical music with 27 releases to-date, as well as an independent producer of both concerts and recordings. She received awards from the National Endowment for the Art, the Massachusetts Council on the Arts, Meet the Composer, ASCAP, the American Music Center including the prestigious Music Liberty Award in 2002 for her post-9/11 piece. Her work was presented at Lincoln Center at the New York City Opera. She is active member of the American Music Center and Chamber Music America and a member and publisher with ASCAP.

REVIEWS:

Waking in New York was included in Sequenza21's list of 111 most influential post-1970 works. (April 15, 2005)

"Lovely, effecting and affecting." The New York Times (Kozinn)

"The poetry of Allen Ginsberg has inspired a wide range of composers (…) In terms of authenticity, however, all are trumped by Lauten's moving memorial to her creative mentor". New Music Box

"Lauten reveals greater artistry the further you look beneath the surface, successfully marking the leaps in Ginsberg's own impressionistic narrative with appropriate changes in metre and key."
Gramophone U.K.

"Strange but oddly compelling work...often wild and marvelously demented chord changes... this is a music of Gotham updated to our times, immortalized by one of its best poetic voices, and put in motion by a composer in tune with the pulse of her city". American Record Guide

More information at: http://www.elodielauten.net