MATA: Young Composers - Now!

MATA Benefit Concert & Art Auction
honoring MEREDITH MONK
@ The Paula Cooper Gallery

“MATA represents excitement, energy, innovation and risk. The future of music is in good hands judging from the skill, inventiveness and artistry of the composers MATA supports. Every day I’m grateful that music is in my life and am thrilled to be the honoree at this year’s benefit.” — Meredith Monk

For the past ten years, MATA has been dedicated to commissioning and presenting works by young composers from around the world. MATA’s directors are motivated by a desire to create community among young musicians, especially those whose work defies definition and doesn’t fit into existing institutions. By providing young composers with a professional performance of their work, access to first-rate performers and valuable connections to colleagues, MATA nurtures their entry into American musical life.

Featuring a Silent Auction of distinguished pieces selected from MATA’s collection of donated works and its lithograph project, NOTES: 2005, including a work by honoree Meredith Monk!

Featuring Performances by
Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble
with
string quartet led by violinist Todd Reynolds and
Members of The M6: Meredith Monk Music Third Generation

Featuring selections from Ms. Monk’s
Songs of Ascension
Dolmen Music
and
Volcano Songs

The Paula Cooper Gallery
521 West 21st Street, 2nd Floor
New York, New York

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2008

8:00 pm Cocktails, Hors d’Oeuvres
8:30 pm Performance
9:30 pm Cocktails

TICKETS AVAILABLE AT MATAFESTIVAL.ORG.

Note: Contributions to MATA are fully tax-deductible. The non-deductible portion of each ticket is $35.

MATA, Inc.
293 Warren Street #2
Brooklyn, NY 11201
info@matafestival.org
Phone: (212) 563-5124

Philip Glass Executive Producer
Missy Mazzoli Executive Director
Chris McIntyre Artistic Director

“Be Still” (photo by Luigi Anzivino)

I had seen the beautiful image taken by Luigi Anzivino above, but today I happened upon another stash of performance photos, by James Eilers, of my performance at this year’s Garden of Memory, an annual new music extravaganza in Oakland, California. Nearly two months after the fact, I hope folks will still accept a belated thanks for coming out to hear me. It meant a lot to have you there, especially those who stuck it out in the heat for a whole set, who came up to introduce themselves afterward, and who told other people to come for later sets. I wish I could have thanked each of you individually.

For those who missed it: on what felt like the hottest day in the history of the world, I performed four half-hour sets of solos from Volcano Songs and from Songs from the Hill, plus two duets from Facing North, in essentially a greenhouse with no circulation and sunlight beaming down through skylights to intensify the broil. Facing North, I’d like to point out, was originally created in the dead of winter in northern Canada. So while I was trying to envision seeing my breath in crisp, clear Arctic air, I was also trying to ignore the river of sweat that was coursing down my neck and back.

Here are the photos I mentioned above. Thanks again to everyone for their support and to the incomparable Sarah Cahill for masterminding the whole event.

The event takes place at Chapel of the Chimes, a labyrinthine and extraordinarily beautiful Julia Morgan-designed columbarium and mausoleum replete with gardens, fountains, and stained-glass skylights in Oakland, CA. The program feature simultaneous performances in different parts of the building by Bay Area composers, musicians, and other performers presenting a variety of acoustic and electronic music, installations, and interactive events; the audience is free to move throughout the building during the performances.

Admission is $12 general, $8 students and seniors, $5 kids under 12 (kids under 5 are free). Tickets available from www.brownpapertickets.com.

Saturday, June 21, from 5 to 9 PM
Chapel of the Chimes
4499 Piedmont Ave.
Oakland, CA

Other composers and performers include: * Charles Amirkhanian * John Bischoff * Krystina Bobrowski * Jorge Boehringer * Brassiosaurus: A Tribute to Toyoji Tomita * Sarah Cahill * Edmund Campion, Danielle De Gruttola, and John Campion * Luciano Chessa * Cornelius Cardew Choir * Del Sol Quartet * Paul Dresher and Joel Davel * Adam Fong * Larnie Fox * Ellen Fullman and Theresa Wong * Brenda Hutchinson * Laura Inserra * Jaroba and Byron Blackburn * Henry Kaiser * Stephen Kent * Walter Kitundu * Gregory Moore * Nature Sounds Society * Amy X Neuburg * Maggi Payne * Philip Perkins * Dan Plonsey’s Daniel Popsicle * Randy Porter * Gyan Riley * Jason Victor Serinus * Andy Strain and Kevin Shea Adams * Donald Swearingen * Tango No. 9 * Threshold Choir * William Winant Percussion Group * Katrina Wreede * Aaron Ximm * Pamela Z

NPR’s Lara Pelligrinelli sat in on a coaching that Emily Eagen and Peter Sciscioli had with Meredith on “Long Shadows,” a duet from Facing North, and you can hear a segment of that in this program. She also interviewed the group backstage just before our Symphony Space show. We appear around 4 minutes in, but the whole piece is worth hearing.

Movement Research’s Spring Gala 2008
honoring Joseph V. Melillo and Meredith Monk

Monday, May 19, 2008, at the Judson Memorial Church,
55 Washington Square South, New York City
6pm Dinner, 8pm Performance

Choreography: Peter Sciscioli | Dancers: Hope Davis, Mare Hieronimus, Storme Sundberg | Musicians: Members of The M6: Emily Eagen, Holly Nadal, Rebecca Stanton | Music: Epic, composed by Meredith Monk | Costumes: Matthew Simonelli

Other performers include Theo Bleckmann, Janis Brenner, Ellen Fisher, Katie Geissinger, Lanny Harrison + Lily Pink, Paul Langland and Pablo Vela

Photo of Peter Sciscioli by Steven Schreiber

In November 2002, Mieke van Hoek, Monk’s partner of 22 years, suddenly died—a major shock which triggered fundamental doubts in the significance of art and art-making altogether. A few months later, Monk was approached by Rosetta Life, a London based organization which connects artists with hospice patients. “They asked me to write music for a play about their stories but I expressed that I was more interested in making an interdisciplinary piece about impermanence since at the time that subject was occupying most of my thoughts. After spending time with Rosetta Life workers and patients in London, a deeply moving experience, I began seeing the piece as an abstract, poetic evocation of the passages of life.

Read more about impermanence here.

“impermanence is a meditation on death and the passage of time, done with Monk’s inimitable brand of voluptuous spareness. With its fluid blend of choral music, song, film and dance, it marks the latest unclassifiable effort by this visionary creator.”
—Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle

“…a lovely, rueful full-evening disquisition on death and the dying. That’s not to say that impermanence is either depressing or maudlin. The work…exalts life.”
—Allan Ulrich, Voice of Dance

“Voices and movements approach loss and remembrance profoundly, making poetry of the mundane and seasoning it with wit.”
—Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice

T.r.a.n.s.m.i.s.s.i.o.n [Work-In-Progress]

Choreography: Peter Sciscioli | Dancers: Hope Davis, Mare Hieronimus, Storme Sundberg | Musicians: Members of The M6: Emily Eagen, Holly Nadal, Rebecca Stanton | Music: Epic, composed by Meredith Monk | Costumes: Matthew Simonelli

April 11 (Fri) 12pm - The 92nd Street Y, Buttenweiser Hall, 1395 Lexington at 92nd St, 2nd Fl
April 21 (Mon) 8pm - Movement Research at the Judson Church, 55 Washington Square South

Both performances are free and open to the public

www.petersciscioli.com | www.m6ensemble.com | www.meredithmonk.org

Where does sound originate in the body? How can voice become movement? This new work for 3 dancers and 3 musicians draws its inspiration from Meredith Monk’s “Epic,” Peter Sciscioli’s own idiosyncratic movement vocabulary, and his experience performing Monk’s work. The 3 singers are directly worked into the staging of the piece, crafted differently for each of the spaces in which it will be performed.

I’m not at all sure how to put into words the experience I had tonight at the M6 concert at Symphony Space.

First of all, I remembered Sid’s post about memorizing Boatman, and I realized that my little charts for the Barber ensembles are child’s play. The nuance in the performances tonight was exceptional. And it was all memorized! And had a feeling of improvisation and freedom and joy that can only come from knowing something inside and out. I was humbled!

I was also proud to be witnessing the beginning of something new, something “next.” A legacy in progress. Congratulations to all involved.

But mostly I left with an incredible excitement to sink my teeth into… The Barber of Seville!! When I said this to TM, he replied, “That’s like me going to an Eliot Carter concert and saying I can’t wait to get to work on a Mozart Flute concerto!” I know, I know, it sounds crazy, but hear me out.

There were two specific elements that inspired me, things that I needed an infusion of passion for before I could be the Rosina that I want to be. This role is iconic. Everyone knows her, there have been so many incredible interpreters of the role, and I feel like I need six more months to fully understand her character and the musical world Rossini created for her. But, obviously, I don’t have six months! I’ve been learning and studying and singing, but I think I’ve been really scared.

Tonight the things I learned from the M6 performers have given me courage - and excitement! - to sink my teeth into this role in a new way.

One was virtuosity. Nothing says “virtuosity” like Rossini, or is it the other way around? And I’ve been approaching all of these melismas (runs of fast notes) with serious trepidation, knowing I could sing them but unsure how to “sell” them. What was the point? Isn’t it just about showing what cool things you can do with your voice? What’s exciting about that?

Nothing, really, if your only goal is show off the cool things you can do with your voice. Virtuosity for virtuosity’s sake is gross. But tonight I saw virtuosity with intent - musical, dramatic, emotional, intellectual. And it was moving! Exciting! Beautiful! This seems like a no-brainer, but I’d become blinded by all the little black dots and flags. All I could see was the music. I’d completely forgotten what the music is there for.

Which leads me to the next thing I saw on that stage tonight: communication. These performers were TALKING to each other. Sharing ideas, having arguments, loving and consoling and laughing with each other. And yet not a single “word” was sung or spoken. It was all gibberish, “nonsense” syllables. But I saw more true communication between people tonight than I’ve seen on many an opera/theater stage, where there are actual words in actual languages.

This incredible openness and communication paired with virtuosity created, as you can imagine, an unparalleled performance. Truly inspiring. I was sorry it was so late when I got home, because I wanted to do nothing more than launch into “Una voce poco fa” at full volume! Tomorrow…

Oh, and another thing I took away from the concert tonight? I now have a new requirement for my future boyfriend: he must be willing to learn Monk’s Facing North with me and sing it as we walk down the street.

Recipient of a 2008 Sullivan Foundation Award, soprano Anne-Carolyn Bird made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 2007 with two roles in a new production of Puccini’s Il trittico and returned in the fall as Barbarina in Le nozze di Figaro. She spent the summer as a Filene Young Artist at the Wolf Trap Opera Company. Ms. Bird keeps a blog chronicling her life as a singer. It is read daily by music writers, administrators, opera fans, and singers worldwide at theconcert.blogspot.com.

My concert companion, ACB, has kindly read my mind and already written everything I wanted to say about this exceptional show, a concert of Meredith Monk compositions performed by The M6, a group of ridiculously talented young singers, including Sid Chen of The Standing Room. ACB and I exchanged many astounded “did-you-just-[bleep]ing-hear-THAT” glances throughout the show, and shared an intense chat at intermission on the nature of virtuosity (which inspired this post). In this case, the tremendous virtuosity on display actually did hit home, in a thrillingly visceral way, because (A) it was fresh — the extended vocal techniques Meredith Monk pioneered are still a long way from being tapped out, and (B) it was meaningful — these songs require virtuosity, but they are not about virtuosity.

I’m no expert on Meredith Monk’s music by any means — I’ve heard a few things of hers before here and there (including a charming concert at BAMcafé a few years back with Theo Bleckmann and Gary Versace), but her stuff has never hit me as hard as it did last week. Tablet, especially, was [bleep]ing primal, an epic in some imagined pre-grammatical language.

Meredith Monk’s music requires a significant buy-in from the audience, because if you’re not familiar with her style, your first reaction is likely going to be “what in the hell is this — early minimalism meets Shooby Taylor?” But the M6 singers were so committed to the music and so engaged in their roles that it was impossible not to get drawn into the world they were creating. The songs may not have words, but they do tell stories, and The M6 made these imagined narratives absolutely riveting.

Like ACB says, “I saw more true communication between people tonight than I’ve seen on many an opera/theater stage, where there are actual words in actual languages.” I could say much the same thing about many, many jazz singers, who value making pretty sounds over singing the lyrics like you own them. Hell, even originals often come across like professional-but-indifferent covers.

On the way back to the subway, ACB suggested that if The M6 were to expand beyond their current mandate of representing Meredith Monk’s music to include other composers, they have the potential to become the Eighth Blackbird of new vocal music. I concur.

A rapidly rising composer on the New York jazz scene, Darcy James Argue directs Secret Society, a dynamic 18-piece band featuring his original works. Argue holds a Bachelor of Music from McGill University and a Master of Music from New England Conservatory.

that’s my head, directly above the white cap on the bicyclist

During the course of last night’s performance, I honestly had no idea how many people were in the audience; there could have been, like, 5 people total, for all I knew. The house lights were all the way down and the stage lighting prevented me from seeing anything beyond the first couple of rows. I do remember thinking at one point, gee, it’s strange that these people are sitting so close to the stage; people don’t normally sit there unless they have to. And some part of my brain registered the fact that there were bodies in the loge-like seats on the side, but I chose not to give it much mind. So I hope my face didn’t register the shock too obviously when the house lights came up for the composer acknowledgment after the second bow, because my first thought was actually, WHOA, who are all these people?!?!? I’m told that there were even a dozen+ standing-room folks in the back of the house.

My sincere thanks to everyone who turned up, and for being such a responsive and enthusiastic audience. And thanks also to everyone who took the time to say hello afterwards and express the things that the program made them think about and feel. It means a lot to me that so many of the things people said went far beyond and far deeper than the usual “you have a lovely voice” or “well, that must have been hard!” type of comments. It was a very satisfying evening from the stage, and I hope it was equally so out in the seats.

Some reactions are up on Anne-Carolyn Bird’s and Darcy James Argue’s blogs, if you’re curious.