About the Show
Doors at 5:30pm
“Encounters in the Republic of Heaven”
Encounters is an 8-channel sound-surround piece based on speaking voices recorded in the North East of England where Trevor Wishart was A.C.E. Composer-in-Residence from October 1st, 2006 to September 2009, based at the University of Durham. The piece is constructed in 4 Acts of approximately 20 minutes each, combining portraits of individual speakers (accompanied by sounds and imaginary instruments derived from the voices themselves) with computer animation of the entire community of voices – speech that waltzes, speech that locks in harmony, clouds of speech that circle the audience, culminating with speech that transforms into song. The piece was finally completed on January 1st 2011.
ACT 1 (c. 20mins)
Voicewind
The Fisherman’s Tale
Children’s Stories I
Speech Waltzing
The Budgie
The Bellydancer
Finale
ACT 2 (c. 17mins)
Teens Gossip
The Dancer’s Tale
Clouds of Speech
Travelling Butcher
Children’s Stories II
Finale
ACT 3 (c. 23mins)
Voicewind
The Farmer’s Tale
Heathcliffe, come here!
Speech harmonised
The Stories I Hear!
The Soldier’s Tale
Finale
ACT 4 (c. 15mins)
The Poet’s Tale
The best thing that ever happened to me
Finale – Speech Singing – Voicewind
http://www.trevorwishart.co.uk/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Wishart
Other Winter Highlights
ETHEL’s HomeBaked Round III
March 8, 2017 - 7:00pm The musically omnivorous string quartet ETHEL, whom The New York Times has described as “indefatigable and eclectic” and The New Yorker has deemed “vital and brilliant,” returns to National Sawdust to present the third chapter of ETHEL’s HomeBaked project. With its focus on emerging NYC-based composers, the project, which began in 2010, has already produced eight compositions, many of which have entered the quartet’s repertoire.
Lost Spring
March 3, 2017 - 7:00pm One hundred years after the Armenian Genocide, a mother must explain this troubled history to her daughter. But how does one explain inhuman cruelty to innocence itself? Mixing theater, dance, and live music, and further brought to life by the visuals of artist Kevork Mourad, this multi-disciplinary creation is the poetic journey of a woman in quest of her history, in quest of meaning, in quest of a lost spring…
Ferus Festival: Requiem for: A Tuesday
January 7, 2017 - 7:00pm Requiem for: A Tuesday is a theatrical concert that takes the form of a ceremony in which those assembled are invited to overcome fear by looking to each other. In this ceremony, music opens up a space for the audience to witness and thus face collective and individual notions of mortality and fear. By taking part in such an act, the assembled will perhaps understand that these actions are universal and thus fear of the other is not necessary as there is, in fact, no other
Prototype Presents: Funeral Doom Spiritual
January 14, 2017 - 10:00pm Funeral Doom Spiritual is a song of mourning for what Anthony Paul Farley calls “the motionless movement of death through slavery, segregation, and neo-segregation.” This new monodrama composed by M. Lamar and Hunter Hunt-Hendrix draws on themes of apocalypse, end times, and rapture found in Negro Spirituals, what Lamar calls “Doom Spirituals.”
The Passionate Pilgrim Deluxe
June 3, 2017 - 7:00pm The Passionate Pilgrim” is a song cycle co-written by composer-performer collective Oracle Hysterical (Elliot Cole, Majel Connery and Doug and Brad Balliett). In this collaboration with baroque period ensemble, New Vintage Baroque, “The Passionate Pilgrim” brings an all-but-forgotten poem cycle back to life, reimagined as tuneful Baroque pop.
Sxip Shirey presents: Trevor Wishart
March 25, 2017 - 6:30pm Encounters is an 8-channel sound-surround piece based on speaking voices recorded in the North East of England where Trevor Wishart was A.C.E. Composer-in-Residence from October 1st, 2006 to September 2009, based at the University of Durham. The piece is constructed in 4 Acts of approximately 20 minutes each, combining portraits of individual speakers (accompanied by sounds and imaginary instruments derived from the voices themselves) with computer animation of the entire community of voices - speech that waltzes, speech that locks in harmony, clouds of speech that circle the audience, culminating with speech that transforms into song. The piece was finally completed on January 1st 2011.
James Rhodes
February 4, 2017 - 7:00pm Immortal piano music by history's finest composers performed in an intimate setting with the lights down low and an opportunity to disappear and escape from the world for an hour and a half. Along with a few jokes. And a bit of historical context.
A Mouth is Not for Talking: La voix humaine
March 10, 2017 - 7:00pm In this theatrical concert, Poulenc and Cocteau’s cautionary tale La voix humaine receives a reflective update when paired with world premiere songs from Forrest Pierce’s The Burning Harp, set to texts of Rumi. Soprano Laura Bohn and pianist Mila Henry’s dual conversation forces listeners to ask: in this age of technology, can we connect with others without losing ourselves?
Ritz Chamber Series Vol. 1
January 29, 2017 - 4:00pm THE RITZ CHAMBER PLAYERS is hailed by the e Baltimore Sun as “one of the most interesting and dynamic ensembles to emerge in recent years.” Boasting some of the world’s preeminent musicians spanning the African diaspora, it brings a fresh, new energy to the classical music genre.
The New American Songbook
January 11, 2017 - 7:00pm The quarterly web magazine for experimental music, Sound American, moves from the text to the sonic in order to answer the question: “What does a truly modern American Songbook sound like?”
Glass @ 80: Philip Glass & Foday Musa Suso with Jeffrey Zeigler
March 12, 2017 - 7:00pm Known for his hypnotic performances of traditional Kora (Harp/Lute) music, as well as his cutting edge musical encounters, Kora virtuoso Foday Musa Suso is a direct descendent of Jalimadi Wulen Suso, the inventor of the Kora.
National Sawdust+ /ˈəntrəpē/ Mickalene Thomas + Terri Lyne Carrington
February 28, 2017 - 7:30pm Acclaimed Brooklyn-based distinguished international artist and filmmaker Mickalene Thomas, a 2015 United States Artists Francie Bishop Good & David Horvitz fellow, turns her gaze from her arresting, often glittering and provocative mixed-media work to present /ˈentrəpē/ , a collaboration of music and art with three-time Grammy Award-winning jazz musician, Terri Lyne Carrington.
