2018 SHOWCASE
November 29, 2018, 7:30pm
Bloomingdale School of Music
(323 West 108th Street, NY 10025)
$15
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OVERVIEW
A intimate evening of chamber vocal music. Every year, we select a featured piece to set the tone for the Showcase. Last year, we selected Paola Prestini’s Body Maps, years before we have selected pieces by Kate Soper, Alex Burtzos and Nina Young. This year, we have commissioned a piece written collaboratively by Devony Smith and Spencer Snyder.
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COMPOSERS
Dorothy Hindman
Veronika Krausas
Robert McClure
Eric Moe
Spencer Snyder
Devony Smith
MUSICIANS
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Alicia Bisha, violin
Denise Crawfort, voice
Sarah Dutcher, piano
Jillian Flexner, electronics
Brittany Fowler, voice
Timothy Leonard, cello
Sammy Lesnick, clarinet
Victoria Lewis, violin
Cara Search, voice
Michelle Siemens, voice
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MEDIA
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PROGRAM
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Lavished Sunlight
Music by Eric Moe (NYC Premiere)
Words by Richard Wilber
I. Two Songs in a Stanza of Beddoes'
II. Anterooms
Denise Crawfort, voice
Maureen Kelly, cello
Sarah Dutcher, piano
The pair of poems interlock seasonally: the first is a lament for the lost beauty of summer and welcomes “tender winter”, while the second begins with a thaw of the “frozen hours”. A deeper connection is revealed at the end of the piece, where, before our ears, past and present “meet without surprise”.Lavished Sunlight, Frozen Hours was commissioned by Monadnock Music for a concert honoring the poet, and was completed in May 2009.
Hopscotch Tarot
Music by Veronika Krausas (NYC Premiere)
Words by Tom Jacobson
1. Hell 7. Death
2. The Ghost 8. The Motorcycle
3. The Gondola 9. The Puppet
4. The Musician 10. The Driver
5. The Red Notebook 11. The Angels
6. The Lovers 12. The City
Michele Siemens, voice
Alicia Bisha, violin
The Hopscotch Tarot Song Cycle was commissioned by The Industry (Los Angeles) as part of the mobile opera Hopscotch in Los Angeles in 2015. This was part of Chapter 15, the China Town Scene where Lucha (the protagonist) is searching for her missing husband and consults a fortune teller and her horoscope comes alive in China Town Plaza. There are 12 tarot cards created for the opera that reflect different elements in the overall work. The text is written by Tom Jacobson and the artwork for the tarot cards is by Renée Reynolds.
The Divide
Music by Spencer Snyder & Devony Smith (World Premiere)
Words by Matt Taibbi
Devony Smith, voice
Myla Kato-Duvally, piano
Commissioned by Fresh Squeezed Opera
This piece seeks to expose the criminalization of poverty in America by telling the story of an immigrant woman struggling to make ends meet as she raises her six children in Los Angeles. As Matthew Taibbi succinctly states, “we have a profound hatred of the weak and the poor, and a corresponding groveling terror before the rich and successful, and we’re building a bureaucracy to match those feelings.” Money has defined the meaning of justice, distorting the very notion of American citizenship and challenging the founding ideals of its nation
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now our grief is put away
Music by Robert McClure
Words by Anne Shaw
Cara Search, voice
Jillian Flexner, electronics
Shaw's poem leapt off the page with its vivid imagery and haunting descriptions of the tsunami that occurred on December 24, 2004 in the Southeast Pacific, which included Thailand, the setting for this poem. The tsunami killed between five and ten thousand people and devastated all that survived. The poem is filled with ---- own description of her experience in the relief efforts, sayings from Thai culture, and descriptions from survivors of the tsunami. ---- writes, “Thai culture allows a mourning period of 100 days, after which the soul of the departed - and the lives of the living - must move on,” as a description for the line, now our grief is put away.
The Pillow Book
Music by Dorothy Hindman
Words by Rebecca Lindenberg
On a walk through the flea market.
Things that tourists are always snapping photos of.
Things that tourists seem not to see.
Things Emily has said in restaurants.
On Silence.
Things might discover amid large buildings.
Reasons one might want to leave New York.
Brittany Fowler, voice
Jarrett Hoffman, clarinet
Victoria Lewis, violin
Timothy Leonard, cello
Sarah Dutcher, piano
The Pillow Book is a song cycle originally commissioned by the Goliard Ensemble. The music is immediate and multi-layered, creating an alluring soundscape in a single continuous movement, but with definite divisions. The work progresses from observation of the external, physical realm to observations of the internal, metaphysical and then back. Musical ideas associated with specific poetic images are recalled throughout, adding further dimension to the layers of text. Throughout, the idea of song is foremost: the wedding of text and music to enhance both.