VIA Records Presents Du Yun:
About the Show
6:30pm – panel discussion moderated by Lara Pellegrinelli
7pm – excerpts from Angel’s Bone, performed by members of the original cast, NOVUS NY, conducted by Julian Wachner, and a special performance by Du Yun herself.
“a work that gave me nightmares, yet one that I would nonetheless see again.” – Anne Midgette, The Washington Post
“Appallingly good.” – Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, The New York Times
Du Yun and Royce Vavrek‘s 2017 Pulitzer Prize winning opera Angel’s Bone celebrates its release on VIA Records, National Sawdust’s in-house record label, with selections of the work performed by the original cast and ensemble.
Angel’s Bone premiered in 2017, and was hailed as a brutal, harrowing allegory to sex-trafficking. Critics and fans proclaimed the 70-minute opera as one of the most imaginative, profound, and impactful works of the decade.
Panel discussion moderated by acclaimed ethnomusicologist and journalist Lara Pellegrinelli will begin at 6:30pm.
About the Opera
The opera follows the plight of two angels whose nostalgia for earthly delights has mysteriously brought them back to Earth. They are found—battered and bruised from their long journey—by a man and his wife who set out to nurse the wounded angels back to health, only to brutally exploit the angels’ feathers, bones, and bodies for their own profit.
Celebrated both for its breakthrough musical innovations and its bold, direct allegories to human trafficking, Angel’s Bone exists as a truly revolutionary work, generating dialogue both to expand the boundaries of music and the fight for human rights.
About the Artists
Du Yun
Born and raised in Shanghai, China, currently based in NYC, Du Yun * is a composer, multi-instrumentalist and performance artist. Her music exists at an artistic crossroads of orchestral, chamber music, theatre, opera, orchestral, cabaret, storytelling, pop music, visual arts and noise.
Hailed by The New York Times as a leading figure in China’s new generation of composers, Du Yun’s music is championed by some of today’s finest performing artists, ensembles, orchestras and organizations. Selected commissions include the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Mann Center for the Performing Arts, American Composers Orchestra, Berkeley Symphony, Whitney Museum of American Art, Fromm Foundation, Meet the Composer/ Commissioning USA, Chamber Music America, and Shanghai Electronic Music Week. Du Yun’s music has also been presented by Festival d’Avignon (France), Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ (The Netherlands), Musica Nova Helinski (Finland), Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music (Norway), Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt (Germany), Festival Internacional Cervantino (Mexico), Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, BAMNextWave, violinist Hilary Hahn, cellist Matt Haimovitz, and flutist Claire Chase, Trinity Wall Street, Festival of New Trumpet, Ecstatic Music Festival, 21c Liederabend, the San Francisco Contemporary Chamber Players, and many more.
Her music has also been presented by Festival d’Avignon (France), Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ (Netherlands), the Nova Musica of Helinski, Ultima Contemporary Music (Norway), the Darmstadt Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik (Germany), Festival Internacional Cervantino (Mexico), Canadian Music Week, Nova Scotia Festival, Centro Nacional De la Música (Argentina), the Radio Kamer Filharmonie of The Netherlands, le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne of Canada, the Camerata Aberta of Brazil, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the New York City Opera – VOX, cellist Frances-Marie Uitti, among others. Other grants include the Civitella Raneiri Foundation, the Aaron Copland Award, Rockefellor Foundation – Bellagio, and Festival Aix-en-Provence.
As an avid performer, she has appeared in many assorted holes and halls, across New York, nationally and abroad. Her onstage persona has been described by the New York Times as “an indie pop diva with an avant-garde edge,” and “flamboyant” by the Chicago Tribune.
As a performance artist, solo engagements include the 2012 Guangzhou Art Triennial (China) at the Guangzhou Opera House, and the National Academy Museum (USA). Her ongoing collaborations of installation-performance-video with the Pakistani visual artist Shahzia Sikander have been on view at the Shanghai Rockbund Art Museum, the Tokyo Contemporary Museum of Art, San Francisco Art Institute, Pace Foundation (San Antonio), Hong Kong Art Fair 2012, the Sharjah Biennial (United Arab Emirate), Auckland Art Triennial (New Zealand) and Istanbul Biennial (Turkey), Auckland Art Triennial (New Zealand), Istanbul Biennial (Turkey), and Dhaka Art Summit (Bangladesh). ArtForum writes the collaboration as “standout, sound utilized to its best effect.”
Off Broadway credits:Original Music for David Henry Hwang’s Kung Fu (Signature Theatre); Original Music for Chiori Miyagawa Hiroshima Mon Amour (Ohio Theatre)
Du Yun’s studio pop album, Shark in You, released on vinyl, CD and digital on New Focus, which has garnered critical acclaims. Her classical compositions can be heard on labels such as Shanghai Classical Music, ATMA Classique, Oxingale, New Focus, and Deutsche Grammophon for Hilary Hahn — In 27: the Hilary Hahn Encores, which won a 2015 Grammy Award in the category of Best Chamber Music/ Small Ensemble Performance.
An alumna of Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Oberlin College (BM), Harvard University (MA, PHD), Du Yun is currently on the faculty of SUNY-Purchase. Since 2014, she is named the Artistic Director of MATA Festival, a pioneering organization dedicated to commissioning and presenting young composers from around the world.
ROYCE VAVREK
Royce Vavrek is a Canadian librettist who has been called “the indie Hofmannsthal” (The New Yorker), a “Metastasio of the downtown opera scene” (The Washington Post), “an exemplary creator of operatic prose” (The New York Times), and “one of the most celebrated and sought after librettists in the world” (CBC Radio). His notable projects include JFK and Dog Days with David T. Little; 27 and The House Without a Christmas Tree with Ricky Ian Gordon; Song from the Uproar: The Lives and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt, Breaking the Waves and Proving Up with Missy Mazzoli; O Columbia with Gregory Spears; The Hubble Cantata with Paola Prestini; and Midwestern Gothic with Joshua Schmidt.
Originally commissioned by the Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia
Completion co-commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects and HERE
World premiere Co-produced by Beth Morrison Projects, HERE, and Trinity Wall Street for Prototype 2015
