Current Projects
Katrina Ballads
KATRINA BALLADS CD Release and Theatrical Concert
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
(le) poisson rouge
6:30 doors / 7:30 concert
purchase tickets here
composed by Ted Hearne
with film by Bill Morrison
starring:
Abigail Fischer
Rene Marie
Isaiah Robinson
Anthony Turner
featuring the Katrina Ballads Band
***
Katrina Ballads goes to The Foundation for Modern Music in Houston, Texas!
August 28, 2010 at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts/Zilkha Hall.
Katrina Ballads is a powerful new piece of music by Ted Hearne, performed by 5 singers and a band of 11 musicians. Drawn entirely from primary source-texts from the week following Hurricane Katrina - including everything from first-person testimonies of survivors to George W. Bush’s infamous “heckuva job” Katrina Ballads creates a vivid look into America’s darkest hours. The BMP production will place the lens on how the media determines our reality and perceptions.
Like American music and New Orleans itself, Katrina Ballads is an omnivorous and multi-stylistic work. It is rhythmic and dramatic music, with an edgy post-minimalist drive and a deep jazz influence. In a new production featuring the work of renowned filmmaker Bill Morrison, Katrina Ballads is a riveting full-body experience, challenging us to remember that devastating and telling week in September 2005, and calling us to reflect upon our own history and relationship to the media.
Katrina Ballads was developed at New York City Opera's 2009 VOX Contemporary American Opera Lab.
More Information
Audio Clips
Video Clips
Press for Katrina Ballads
Death and the Powers
Composer Tod Machover stands before a looming projection as he talks about his robot opera, Death and the Powers, photo by photo courtesy of A.R.T.
DEATH AND THE POWERS is a new opera by pioneering composer Tod Machover, directed by Tony award nominee Diane Paulus, with libretto by Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky. When the eccentric patriarch Simon Powers downloads himself into The System, his entire house comes to life around his family and friends. A groundbreaking new production developed at the MIT Media Lab in creative partnership with the Chicago Opera Theater, Death and the Powers explores what we leave behind for the world and our loved ones, using specially designed technology and an expressively animated stage, including a chorus of robots and a musical chandelier. Passionately inventive music, full of arching melodic lines, richly nuanced textures, and propulsive rhythms.
Premiere performances of Death and the Powers are planned for the 2010/2011 Season in Monaco and the U.S., including the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) and Chicago Opera Theaters. Worldwide touring available 2010-2012.
For more information on Death and the Powers visit: http://opera.media.mit.edu/projects/deathandthepowers/index.php
"Brilliantly gifted." - The New York Times
"America's most wired composer." - LA Times
