Projects In Development
21c Liederabend op3
21c Liederabend
Creative Directors Beth Morrison (BMP) & Paola Prestini (VIA)
Curated & Co-Produced by Beth Morrison Projects, Opera on Tap, and VisionIntoArt
Executive Producer Beth Morrison Projects
Producers Beth Morrison of Beth Morrison Projects (BMP), Anne Hiatt of Opera on Tap (OOT), and Paola Prestini of VisionIntoArt (VIA) come together to curate a festival canvassing the songs of living composers who their organizations have championed and produced over the recent years.
Their biennial 21cLIEDERABEND series is the most ambitious, comprehensive and expansive art song festival in the industry, featuring some of the brightest rising stars in the NYC based post-classical movement as well as the leaders of the national and international contemporary music scene.
Download an Informational Packet
THUMBPRINT
composed by Kamala Sankaram
libretto by Susan Yankowitz
THUMBPRINT is a 90-minute contemporary music-theatre work by acclaimed playwright/librettist, Susan Yankowitz and emerging Indian-American composer, Kamala Sankaram. Using a mix of Hindustani music and European opera, and a cast of six singing in a variety of classical Western and Asian vocal styles, THUMBPRINT is inspired by the experiences of Mukhtar Mai, a young illiterate peasant who was gang-raped as retribution for an alleged ‘honor’ crime by her little brother and who became the first woman in Pakistan to bring her rapists to justice. When offered a settlement, she instead asked for a school where girls in her village could be educated so that they, unlike her, would never know the humiliation of having to sign their names with a thumbprint. Despite government opposition and repeated death threats, she has now become an international voice for human rights. Mukhtar’s remarkable story is at the heart of this boundary-leaping work that embraces East and West, Indian ragas and world folk music, the classical and the contemporary, the styles and pleasures of both opera and music-theatre.
“Sankaram’s tuneful score and standout performance are well worth a listen.” - The New York Post
Aging Magician
composed by Paola Prestini
stage direction and scenic design by Julian Crouch
with video and projection design by S. Katy Tucker
featuring a specially installed instrument designed by Mark Stewart
January 15 and 16 at HERE Dot, NYC
As a tenet of PROTOTYPE, each year a preview of a work in progress will be presented that will be shown in completion in future seasons. Paola Prestini's work in progress Aging Magician begins with a barker for a magic show at Coney Island, undergoing an operation in the early 20th century. He begins to hallucinate and imagines himself as a famous magician being transported by Charon, the boatman of the underworld, across the river Styx, which he envisions as Venice. The patient is transformed into a magician and his bed becomes a gliding gondola. He encounters and falls in love with a boy who sings from his piano and encourages the Magician to take one last journey before death. As the Gondolier, Charon cares for and shepherds the Magician through the adventure. What unfolds is a compelling portrait of longing and loneliness and the persistence of hope as this gentle soul performs the ultimate magic trick: the transformation of an un-magical life, in its final moments, to one of greatness, representing mankind’s ultimate yearning to leave a legacy to the departed world.
Download a informational packet here.
PRODUCTION DEVELOPMENT HISTORY
April 7 2011 at the 21c Liederabend, op. 2 at The Kitchen - watch the performance
May 2012 at the Southern Theatre, Minneapolis, MN
Video Clips
Persona
- Music by Keeril Makan
- Libretto adapted by Jay Scheib
- Developed with new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound
- directed and adapted by JAY SCHEIB
- from the screenplay by INGMAR BERGMAN
PERSONA is a provocative, highly cerebral, and artistically complex depiction of human frailty, cruelty, and identity. Composed by Rome Prize Winner, Keeril Makan with libretto and direction by Jay Scheib, who was named by American Theater Magazine as one of the "top 25 directors likely to shape American performance over the next twenty-five years, " the project is being developed with reigning new music ensemble, Alarm Will Sound. Workshop supported by the New York City Cultural Innovation Fund, an initiative of The Rockefeller Foundation. An Alarm Will Sound and Beth Morrison Projects co-production.
“[Keeril Makan] is a fascinating wedding of intellect and expressivity.” – Newsday
Music Workshop
with Alarm Will Sound
New York, NY
March 13−December 14, 2012
Labyrinth
composed by Paola Prestini
in collaboration with visual artist Erika Harrsch
with video design by Ed Purver
featuring cellist Maya Beiser
Labyrinth is a multimedia adaptation of Octavio Paz's "The Labyrinth of Solitude," a poetic journey in search of self-knowledge, subjective consciousness, the recognition of otherness, and the constant state of longing and desire for teh other to fill up the void of existence. Visuals designed by Erika Harrsch. Featuring violinist Cornelius Dufallo, and cellist Maya Beiser.
click here for more information
click here to listen to an excerpt
