Touring Projects
Soldier Songs
Soldier Songs is a riveting evening-length multimedia event from composer David T. Little that combines elements of theater, opera, rock-infused-concert music, and animation to explore the perceptions versus the realities of the Soldier, the exploration of loss and exploitation of innocence, and the difficulty of expressing the truth of war. Music can be easily co-opted to serve a political or ideological message or it can equally be a vehicle for reflection, engagement, and emotional connection, as is seen in this gripping music-theatre work.
The score for SOLDIER SONGS was commissioned by the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble who premiered a concert version of the work in 2006. SOLDIER SONGS received a fully staged workshop production sold to standing room capacity by Beth Morrison Projects in New York in 2008 at downtown music venue Le Poisson Rouge with stage direction by Yuval Sharon. Another concert version was presented by Opera Vista in Houston in May, 2009. Most recently, Beth Morrison Projects produced the premiere of the full production at The International Festival of Arts & Ideas in New Haven, CT in June 2011 (as pictured in these materials).
We are currently seeking presenters for this extraordinary and moving work. Existing in an orchestral scoring as well, Soldier Songs had its orchestral concert premier as part of New York City Opera’s Vox Festival in May 2008, and was the hit of the festival.
Selected Press:
Meet the Creators of Soldier Songs - an interview with David T. Little and Yuval Sharon for the International Festival of Arts and Ideas
New Haven News Channel 8 - an interview with David T. Little and baritone David Adam Moore for WTNH
WQXR NYC Classical Radio blog features Soldier Songs
The New Haven Register features Soldier Songs
WATCH an interview with David for New Music Box!
DOWNLOAD the Soldier Songs packet
Soldier Songs is funded generously in part by
Audio Clips
21c Liederabend, op. 2
April 7th through 9th at The Kitchen, NYC
Seeking to update the definition of liederabend (song night) for the 21st century, independent producing companies Beth Morrison Projects, Opera on Tap and VisionIntoArt join forces to present the most ambitious, and comprehensive art song festival of the season.
Building on the festival's critcially-acclaimed premiere in 2009 (Best of 2009 in Classical and Opera in Time Out New York), the producers have expanded the festival exponentially, presenting the works of 21 composers including 8 world premieres over the course of 3 nights, encompassing an explosive array of styles presented within a visual palate of projection design, newly commissioned films and sculptural lighting design.
Featuring works by Douglas J. Cuomo, Phil Kline, Russell Platt, Julia Wolfe, and John Zorn, a commission in honor of the festival by Du Yun, and premieres by Ted Hearne, Gabriel Kahane, David T. Little, Matt Marks, Missy Mazzoli, and Paola Prestini. With performances by ACME and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. Featuring special guest performers Theo Bleckmann, Rinde Eckert, and Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond. Projection design by S. Katy Tucker, lighting design by Marcus Doshi, video design by William Cusick, Murat Eyuboglu, Ali Hosaini, Carmen Kordas, Stephen Taylor, and S. Katy Tucker.
Tickets available at The Kitchen's box office or through ticketweb.com. Discounted festival passes available.
Special Festival Preview in Time Out New York
TUNE IN! - New York classical radio WQXR celebrates the composers of 21c Liederabend, op. 2
"Best of 2009" - Time Out New York
"Three ambitious grassroots organizations - Beth Morrison Projects, VisionIntoArt, and Opera on Tap - mounted an expansive, at times explosive - survey of contemporary art song, musical theatre and opera." - Steve Smith (Time Out New York)
Read about the 21c Liederabend in:
visit 21CLIEDERABEND.COM or visit our facebook page.
Death and the Powers
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.
UNITED STATES PREMIERE
American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, MA - March 18-25
Chicago Opera Theatre in Chicago, IL - April 2-10
For more information on Death and the Powers visit: http://opera.media.mit.edu/projects/deathandthepowers/index.php
Check out a trailer of the opera by clicking http://web.media.mit.edu/~tod/media/video/DATP-Promo-paris-final-1280x720.mov
"As it now stands, Death and the Powers doesn't point the way to a new era of opera. It's there. Now." - The Philadelphia Inquirer
"[Tod Machover is] brilliantly gifted." - The New York Times
"America's most wired composer." - LA Times
Brooklyn Babylon
Daniel Zezelj, animation & live painting
Secret Society, instrumental ensemble
Brooklyn Babylon is a multimedia performance that uses live instrumental music, animation, and live painting as its language of expression and communication. All three elements are presented onstage simultaneously, and work in concert to present the central narrative: a story about the highest tower in the world being constructed in the heart of futuristic Brooklyn. The main character, an old carpenter named Lev, is commissioned to create an elaborate carousel to crown the top of the monumental building.
It's maximalist music of impressive complexity and immense entertainment value, in your face and then in your head. — The Village Voice, of Argue's big band, Secret Society
"a tribute to the refuge and grace of imagination.” —The Boston Globe (about Zezelj's graphic novel, Stray Dogs)
“For a wholly original take on big band’s past, present and future, look to Darcy James Argue.” —Newsweek
The music, performed by Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, compliments the visual aesthetic, seamlessly combining and juxtaposing influences from a variety of genres and time periods, functioning as an equal partner with the projections and live painting in creating the narrative. The animation follows our characters through a decaying metropolis where past, present, and future melt together in a decaying urban labyrinth. The atmosphere resembles that of silent movies from the 1920’s, with sharply contrasting light and shadow, expressive gestures and movements, and minimal use of text. The live painting is created on a large horizontal panel attached to a scaffold above the screen. Black and white acrylic paint is applied with large brushes and rollers. Each painting gradually evolves from the abstract towards the figurative, and then slowly dissolves into the next image. The painting mixes a Baroque chiaroscuro aesthetic with graffiti and wall-writing textures.
Brooklyn Babylon is commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music for the 2011 Next Wave Festival and is supported by a grant from The MAP fund, a program of Creative Capital supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Brooklyn Babylon was developed and received a preview performance at SUNY Purchase, Wiley Hausam, Executive Director.
WORLD PREMIERE, Brooklyn Academy of Music, November 9-12, 2011
Video Clips
LIFE: A Journey Through Time
“Seven years ago I stood at the tide line of an estuary and begun the personal journey through time. It is humbling to imagine the immensity of time covered by the history of the Earth but that is what I plunged into, with curiosity and wonder ... ” FRANS LANTING
LIFE is a multimedia orchestral presentation of the interpretation of life on earth combining photographic images by Frans Lanting, music by Philip Glass, and visual design by Alexander Nichols.
Commissioned by the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in 2005, it was premiered in California the following year under the music direction of Marin Alsop. Since then it has been presented by the Baltimore Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and Turin Philharmonic Orchestra. It will premiere in New York with the Orchestra of St. Luke's in June this year and in London with the London Symphony Orchestra in February 2010.
LIFE: A Journey Through Time is appropriate for most symphonic venues and orchestras and provides a multimedia concert experience of wide audience appeal. It merges art and science, photography and music, sight and sound - “majestic photographs dance lightly across a huge screen over the orchestra while some of Glass's most elegant music pulses underneath ” Washington Post.
Please visit website, www.LifeThroughTime.com
FRANS LANTING has been hailed as one of the great nature photographers of our time. His influential work appears in books, magazines, and exhibitions around the world. For more than two decades he has documented wildlife and our relationship with nature in environments from the Amazon to Antarctica..... more: lanting.com
Tour produced by Beth Morrison Projects in association with Frans Lanting Productions and Dunvagen Music. Worldwide touring available 2011-12 and 2013-14.
Madame White Snake
A new opera with a Pulitzer Prize winning score by Chinese-American composer Zhou Long and librettist Cerise Lim Jacobs, MADAME WHITE SNAKE is a classical transformation myth, the story of a powerful white snake demon who transforms into a beautiful woman so as to experience love. This simple myth has become an icon in the hearts and minds of the Chinese people, and explores the always-timely question of what it means to be human.
Co-commissioned by Opera Boston and the Beijing Music Festival, after its acclaimed premiere in Boston in February 2010, Beth Morrison Projects will be touring Madame White Snake to the Beijing Music Festival in Beijing, China in October 2010. World-wide touring available for 2011-2012 and 2013-2014.
watch a Chinese newscast on Madame White Snake
download an informational packet on Madame White Snake
for press, videos, and more vist MADAMWHITESNAKE.ORG
listen to the score:
