Commissioning Music/USA 2004
*denotes lead commissioning organization in a consortium
Benjamin Levy · San Francisco, CA
Keeril Makan · San Rafael, CA
Commissioning Organization
ODC Theater · San Francisco, CA
Keeril Makan
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Composer Keeril Makan and choreographer Benjamin Levy will create the new dance work Violent Momentum, scored for viola, clarinet, electronics and laptop. The artists are drawing inspiration from the idea that crimes of passion and acts of fanaticism are rooted in the emotional momentum felt at the moment of personal revelation. ODC Theater will produce the work in the context of a shared evening with another Bay Area artist for six performances in December 2004.
Benjamin Levy
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Known nationally for its entrepreneurial savvy as well as artistic innovation, ODC was the first modern dance company in America to build its own resident facility, from which it operates the ODC School, the ODC Theater, and the ODC Gallery. ODC's programs have launched numerous careers and introduced an extensive roster of esteemed national and international artists to Bay Area audiences. Some 18,000 people attend over 120 performances at the ODC Theater each year.
Rha Goddess · Forestburgh, NY
Rennie Harris · Philadelphia, PA
Baruch Israel · Bronx, NY
Darrin Ross · Philadelphia, PA
Commissioning Organization
651 Arts · Brooklyn, NY
New World Theater · Amherst, NY
Rha Goddess
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Hip-hop legends Rha Goddess and Baba Israel will join with dance sensation Rennie Harris and composer/sound designer Darrin Ross to create Meditations with the Goddess, a collaborative music, theater, and dance work realized through a series of monologues that explore the issues of power, identity, class, and wellness. Conceived as a trilogy of three performance works, Meditations with the Goddess will be developed during the 2004-2005 season and receive its world premiere at New World Theater in March 2005.
Rennie Harris
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651 Arts develops, produces, and presents arts and cultural programming grounded in the African Diaspora, with a primary focus on contemporary performing arts. The organization interrelates and integrates all arts disciplines and the humanities through complementary programs. By informing, nurturing, and connecting artists, audiences, organizations, and communities, 651 Arts serves the cultural life of Brooklyn and beyond-locally, regionally, nationally, and globally-by informing, nurturing, and connecting artists, audiences, organizations, and communities.
Stephin Merritt · New York, NY
Commissioning Organization
Arts at St. Ann's · Brooklyn, NY
Stephin Merritt
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Singer/songwriter Stephin Merritt will create a new musical theater work, Coraline, based on the children's novel of the same title by Neil Gaiman, about a girl who has to outwit the button eyed "other mother" who has kidnapped her parents. The piece will be scored for a small ensemble, and augment a cast of six actor/singers with puppeteers to create some of the non-human characters and otherworldly effects. Arts at St. Ann's plans to present 15 performances of Coraline in the spring of 2005.
For over twenty-three years, Arts at St. Ann's (ASA) artist-driven, genre-defying performances, have been almost uniformly memorable. Through its commissioning of new work for music theater, ASA has played a major role in creating opportunities for concert and visual artists to "cross over" into theatrical presentation. At the same time, ASA has pioneered thematic multi-artist concerts, and has made a long-standing commitment to the development of new puppet theater for adult audiences.
David Lang · New York, NY
Julia Wolfe · New York, NY
Commissioning Organization
Brooklyn Academy of Music · Brooklyn, NY
David Lang
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Composers David Lang and Julia Wolfe, along with long-time collaborator/composer Michael Gordon, will create a new, evening length work, Shelter. This multimedia theater work will incorporate an elaborate series of structures built and rebuilt over and around the musicians - as the structures change they will become defining boundaries, projection surfaces, or temple walls.
Julia Wolfe
photo: Red Poppy
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The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) is a model urban arts center focusing on both global arts issues and local community needs, and has built a worldwide reputation for artistic innovation through its international performing arts and film programming. BAM's mission is to be the universally acknowledged preeminent, progressive performing arts and cinema arts center of the twenty-first century.
Lee Breuer · New York, NY
Bob Telson · Wilton, CT
Commissioning Organizations
*Vermont Symphony Orchestra and the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts · Burlington, VT
Brooklyn Philharmonic and the Brooklyn Academy of Music · Brooklyn, NY
St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Walker Art Center · Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN
Long-time collaborators composer Bob Telson and playwright Lee Breuer will create a new oratorio inspired by the Bach cantatas and the gospel choir music of African-American churches. This new work will be scored for chamber orchestra and feature four soloists and a contemporary gospel choir.
2002/2003 marks the 68th anniversary season of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra (VSO), founded in the 1930s by VSO's first Musical Director Alan Carter. Rather than perform in one concert hall and tour only occasionally, the VSO travels all over the state of Vermont and performs in town halls, churches, parks, schools, and other venues. Current leadership includes Music Director Jaime Laredo, Associate Conductor Anthony Princiotti, and VSO Chorus Director Robert De Cormier.
Stephen Hartke · Glendale, CA
Philip Littell · New York, NY
Commissioning Organization
Glimmerglass Opera · Cooperstown, NY
Stephen Hartke
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Composer Stephen Hartke and librettist Philip Littell will collaborate on an operatic adaptation of Guy de Maupassant's short story Boule de Suif, or, The Good Whore, which examines the lives of several characters during the Franco-Prussian war. This full-length opera is expected to premiere at Glimmerglass Opera's 2006 Festival Season.
Philip Littell
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Glimmerglass Opera presented its first season in Cooperstown, New York in the summer of 1975. Since then, the company has grown to international stature and offers 43 performances of four operas, all in new productions, each July and August. Every summer, Glimmerglass attracts distinguished artists from around the world to perform in the acclaimed Alice Busch Opera Theater.
Anthony Davis · San Diego, CA
Yusef Komunyakaa · Trenton, NJ
Commissioning Organization
Opera Omaha · Omaha, NE
Anthony Davis
Photo: Ray Block
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Composer Anthony Davis and librettist Yusef Komunyakaa will create Dream Horses (working title), a full-length opera based on the story of the Ponca tribe's forced relocation from its native land by the U.S. government, and the attempted return to tribal lands by the chief and several others to bury their dead. There will be two narratives, traditional and contemporary, embracing the past within the context of the present. The opera, scored for full orchestra and chorus, will premiere in the fall of 2006.
Yusef Komunyakaa
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Opera Omaha began in 1958 as the Omaha Civic Opera Society, an all-volunteer opera association. By the early 1970's, the company became fully professional and moved in 1975 to its permanent home, the historic Orpheum Theatre. During the 1980's and 1990's, Opera Omaha produced the first American stagings of Handel's Partenope, Donizetti's Maria Padilla, John Casken's Golem and Rossini's Ermione, as well as world premieres of pieces by Weisgall, Gordon, and Lloyd Weber.
Jake Heggie · San Francisco, CA
Commissioning Organizations
*Cal Performances · Berkeley, CA
Krannert Center for the Performing Arts · Urbana, IL
Jake Heggie
photo: Lisa Kohler
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The consortium is commissioning composer and pianist Jake Heggie and playwright Terrence McNally to adapt McNally's short play Some Christmas Letters into an evening-length musical theater piece. The new work, which will feature mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade as the lead vocalist, spans 20 years in the life of a small family through their conversations during the Christmas season. Due for completion in early 2005, Some Christmas Letters is scheduled to premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theatre's Roda Theatre on May 27, 2005.
Cal Performances is the performing arts presenter and producer of the University of California at Berkeley. The annual performance series include music, dance, theater, and opera. Recent notable projects include the American premiere of Peony Pavilion, director Peter Sellars' re-imagining of the 400-year old Chinese opera, and the Silk Road Project, a ten-day event headed by Yo-Yo Ma and featuring artistic and educational programming that explored the ideas, culture, music and art that occurred along the ancient Silk Road trade routes.
Cooper-Moore · New York, NY
Cooper-Moore
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Marlies Yearby · New York, NY
Laurie Carlos · St. Paul, MN
Carl Hancock Rux · Brooklyn, NY
Commissioning Organization
Movin' Spirits Dance Theater · New York, NY
Marlies Yearby
photo: Dana McAdams
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The Beautiful (working title), a collaboration between composer Cooper-Moore, director/choreographer Marlies Yearby and co-librettists Laurie Carlos and Carl Hancock Rux, examines the power of the media on family. Through vocals, dance, pre-recorded electronics and video, the project aims to capture the complexity and contradictions ingrained in our politically driven, profit-obsessed consumer culture.
Laurie Carlos
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Movin' Spirits Dance Theater was founded in 1988 by Artistic Director Marlies Yearby with a commitment to create ground-breaking and socially-relevant multimedia performance works through a dynamic artistic partnership among acclaimed directors, choreographers, composers, writers, photographers, videographers, visual artists, and designers. Cultural and social constructs are explored through an interplay of aesthetics that expand the boundaries of dance to include interdisciplinary performance, theater and film.
Robert Maggio · Media, PA
James Primosch · Erdenheim, PA
Matthew Neenan · Philadelphia, PA
Christine Cox · Philadelphia, PA
Commissioning Organization
Network for New Music · Philadelphia, PA
James Primosch
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Robert Maggio
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Network for New Music is commissioning composers Robert Maggio and James Primosch and choreographers Matthew Neenan and Christine Cox to create new works as part of an evening-length concert entitled Doubletake. Doubletake combines four new, short chamber works with choreography and dance. The four new pieces are part of a 2004-2005 season-long celebration of Network for New Music's 20th anniversary. Other composers involved in the project include Chen Yi.
Matthew Neenan
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Christine Cox
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Since 1984, Network for New Music has produced, presented or commissioned more than 475 new works, and has achieved national recognition for its achievements. Unique among contemporary music organizations in Philadelphia, Network for New Music programs serious music of all styles, the sole criterion being high artistic standards. The Network Ensemble, conducted by Jan Krzywicki, draws its members from the Philadelphia Orchestra and faculty members of leading universities.
Rinde Eckert · Mill Valley, CA
Commissioning Organization
American Repertory Theatre Company · Cambridge, MA
Rinde Eckert
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Composer and librettist Rinde Eckert is creating a new performance piece based on a conflation of two materials - his own song cycle FOUR SONG LOST IN A WALL and the ETA Hoffman short story Don Juan or A Fabulous Adventure that Befell a Music Enthusiast on His Travels. In this work, Mr. Eckert explores the role of the artist/dreamer who is in retreat from the world but must face its intrusion and reality in creating. Together with American Repertory Theatre's Artistic Director Robert Woodruff, Mr. Eckert hopes to develop the one act piece in a two week workshop during the fall of 2004. 24 performances are planned for spring 2005.
A resident company of professional artists, teachers, technicians and administrators, the American Repertory Theatre (A.R.T.) of Massachusetts provides a home for outstanding directors, a training ground for young artists, and a vital cultural resource for the community. Since its opening production in 1980, the A.R.T. has presented 160 works, 88 of which were premieres, new translations and adaptations. The company has performed in 81 cities in 22 states, and worldwide in 21 cities in 16 countries on four continents.
Edward Bilous · New York, NY
Alison Chase · Brooksville, ME
Commissioning Organization
Pilobolus · Washington Depot, CT
Edward Bilous
photo: Horst Hamann
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Composer Edward Bilous, choreographer Alison Chase, and the dance company Pilobolus are at work on The Love Duet from Black Orpheus. Based on the classic Greek Orphic tale, this duet plays on our sense of paired opposites, and focuses on personal transformation, as the innocent bloom of youthful love becomes the fulcrum we use to see and understand the future. The premiere of this new piece is expected in the summer of 2004 at the Joyce Theater in New York City.
From its beginnings in a Dartmouth College dance class in 1971, Pilobolus has become a major American dance company of international influence. The company, based in Washington Depot, Connecticut, performs for stage and television audiences all over the world, and its works are represented in the repertoires of other influential dance companies including the Joffrey, Feld, Ohio, Hartford and Arizona Ballets in the United States and many others internationally. Pilobolus has received several prestigious honors, including, in June 2000, the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award for lifetime achievement in performance and choreography.
Christian Marclay · New York, NY
Ralph Lemon · New York, NY
Commissioning Organization
Cross Performance · New York, NY
Christian Marclay
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House, a new dance work and part three of Ralph Lemon's 10-year project The Geography Trilogy, is a collaboration between Mr. Lemon and composer Christian Marclay featuring original choreography, music, text, visual environment and projections. In performance, House will mix the choreography, abstraction and fiction of contemporary dance/theater with autobiography and documentary footage, as it explores how different generations remember the same critical events and places. Mr. Marclay, a pioneer in experimenting, composing, and performing with records and turntables, will create a soundscape for House from original and existing material, specifically old blues recordings "taken apart and put back together in an interesting way." The premiere is scheduled for September 2004 at the Krannert Center for the Arts at the University of Illinois, Urbana.
Ralph Lemon
photo: Tara Fallaux
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Cross Performance is dedicated to the creation of collaborative, cross-cultural and cross-discipline performance and presentation. Led by its founder Ralph Lemon since 1985, the company is committed to fostering exchange between artists and the public, and offers events such as lectures, panel discussions and workshops to enhance understanding of the creative process and make connections across cultures. Since 1995, Mr. Lemon has worked with collaborators to produce works in dance, video, film, and new media, which have been performed throughout the United States and distributed worldwide.
