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Posts tagged 'National Sawdust'

Keeril Makan's "Persona" Premieres at National Sawdust

by Ted Gordon on Oct. 15, 2015, 12:57 p.m.

Keeril Makan's ambitious opera project, Persona—based on the Ingmar Bergman film of the same name—will see its world premiere at National Sawdust, New York's newest venue for new music. Produced by Beth Morrison Projects, Persona is directed by Jay Scheib, and features musical direction by Evan Ziporyn conducting members of the Either/Or ensemble. 

Cited by Broadway World as "a provocative, highly cerebral, and artistically complex depiction of human frailty, cruelty and identity", Persona is described by Makan and Scheib as "at its core, a duet — but for one. A kind of monodrama with the briefest of interruptions, performed by a sole soprano who sings the role of Alma. Alma is a young nurse who has been assigned to care for actress, Elisabet Vogler, who in the middle of a performance, suddenly ceased to speak and remained sunken utterly in an apparently self-imposed silence.”

This world-premiere production will run for two nights, on October 23rd and 24th, 2015. Makan will also present a workshop performance of Persona on October 17th at MIT, where he is an Associate Professor of Music. After the October 23rd performance, National Sawdust will also present a concert of Makan's works performed by the AEOLUS Qartet, featuring The Noise Between Thoughts, Washed by Fire, and Return—all available from PSNY.  

Tags: Beth Morrison ProjectsEither/Or EnsembleEvan ZiporynKeeril MakanNational Sawdustoperastring quartet

Ted Hearne's "The Source" Released on New Amsterdam Records

by Ted Gordon on Sept. 16, 2015, 12:50 p.m.

Ted Hearne's The Source, an immanently engrossing work based on the story of U.S. Army Private Chelsea Manning, will be released by New Amsterdam Records in late October of this year. The work, a "modern-day oratorio", sets texts made available via WikiLeaks to Hearne's charactaristically powerful musical language. Hearne emphasizes that the work "never asks the audience to pretend the musicians are fictional characters," and also "approaches its subject matter through discrete movements with tangentially related texts, rather than through traditional narrative storytelling"—two features of oratorios stretching back to the 18th century. 

Hearne will also see the West-coast premiere of Dispatches, a co-commission from the New World Symphony and the San Francisco Symphony. The new work will be performed on programs from September 30th-October 3rd, paired with Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 (Pathétique). In addition to an interview with I Care If You Listen, Hearne has also done a video interview with the SF Symphony, with some previews of the piece itself: 

Finally, Hearne will also have another premiere on the American Composers' Orchestra SONiC Festival by Grammy-award winning vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth. The new work, Coloring Book, will premiere on October 17th at National Sawdust, a new venue for contemporary music in Williasburg, Brooklyn. Hearne is no stranger to writing for vocal ensembles; check out his Consent, for 16 voices, to get a taste for Hearne's cascading, generative, and powerful compositional voice.

Tags: American Composers OrchestraBeth Morrison ProjectsBrooklyn Academy of MusicNational SawdustNew Amsterdam RecordsNew World SymphonyRoomful of TeethSan Francisco SymphonySONiC FestivalTed Hearne
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