Commissioning Music/USA 2006 participants announced
Meet The Composer recently announced the recipients of Commissioning Music/USA 2006. Says MTC President Heather A. Hitchens: "We are especially excited about this year’s Commissioning Music/USA projects because they involve composers in collaborations with a variety of artists, which will take their music to new places and new audiences."
Commissioning Music/USA 2006:
Eve Beglarian • Composer
David Neumann • Choreographer
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Commissioning Organizations
*Dance Theater Workshop • New York, NY
MASS MoCA • North Adams, MA
Alverno Presents • Milwaukee, WI
Feed Forward (working title) will be a dance piece based on the rules of five popular American sports: baseball, basketball, football, soccer, and tennis. The original score will be performed live by the Eastman School of Music trombone choir. The choir will be integrated throughout the dance events as musicians as well as performers of organized movement. The new work will premiere in late 2007 at Dance Theater Workshop and travel to Wisconsin for several performances at Alverno College in Milwaukee.
Listen: Eve Beglarian's I am Writing to You from a Far-Off Country
LINKS
Eve Beglarian
Dance Theater Workshop
Kurt Stallman • Composer
Alfred Guzzetti • Filmmaker
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Commissioning Organization
DiverseWorks • Houston, TX
Thoreau Composed will be an installation piece that will incorporate layers of sound and image. Sensors throughout the space will monitor distance, light, and temperature, so that the sounds will react to the viewer’s movement through the space. The installation will open in the spring of 2007 at the DiverseWorks exhibition space in Houston.
Listen: Kurt Stallman's Episodes for String Quartet
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DiverseWorks
Tamar Muskal • Composer
Danny Rozin • Interactive Digital Artist
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Commissioning Organization
eighth blackbird • Evanston, IL
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Sound Mirrors is to be performed by eighth blackbird in conjunction with Rozin’s software mirrors—interactive video screens which react to the movements of the performers. The music composed for this work will be informed by the presence of the mirror and the mirror itself will be incorporated into the work as though it were a part of the ensemble. The work premieres late 2007 at the University of Richmond, VA, and will be toured by eighth blackbird throughout the country during their 2007-2008 season.
Listen: Tamar Muskal's Dmamah
LINKS
eighth blackbird
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Amy Knoles • Composer
Michael Sakamoto • Choreographer
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Commissioning Organization
Empire of Teeth • Santa Monica, CA
Sacred Cow will be a dance piece that explores the music and dance associated with both sacred and secular rituals though investigations into the intersection between contemporary music, performance techniques and socio-cultural traditions from the artists’ backgrounds and experiences. The piece will premiere at REDCAT in Los Angeles in the summer of 2006
Listen: Amy Knoles' Belgo
LINKS
Amy Knoles
Michael Sakamoto
Carla Kihlstedt • Composer
Jo Kreiter • Choreographer
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Commissioning Organization
Flyaway Productions • San Francisco, CA
Flyaway Productions, composer Carla Kihlstedt and choreographer Jo Kreiter will collaborate on a new performance piece called the “Live Billboard Project”. They will use the idea—and reality—of the ubiquitous billboard and its symbolic associations with consumerism in American society as the basis of the work. The project will focus on a 25’ x 35’ vertical stage designed to attach to structural, outdoor walls as a temporary installation.
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The dance will be performed on this stage introducing the exquisite moving body into an otherwise lifeless and commercial-industrial skyline. They are planning a series of 16 half-hour performances for a standing audience and a 2 minute video/audio loop to be played continuously during non-performance times for the “drive by” audience
Listen: Carla Kihlstedt
LINKS
Flyaway Productions
Mark Booth • Composer
Andrew Bird • Composer
Mark Pavkovic • Composer
Molly Shanahan • Choreographer
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Commissioning Organizations
*Molly Shanahan/Mad Shak • Chicago, IL
Links Hall • Chicago, IL
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My Name is Blackbird will be an evening-length solo for Mad Shak’s founder and artistic director Molly Shanahan. It will be created from the responses of three composers to cases containing identical objects, images, video and text; the variety of their responses will highlight how multiple artists respond differently to the same creative catalyst. The work will premiere spring 2007 at Links Hall in Chicago.
Listen: Mark Pavkovic's reSound
Listen: Andrew Bird's Ethio-Birds
LINKS
Andrew Bird
Molly Shanahan/Mad Shak
Paul Dresher • Composer
Steven Schick • Percussionist
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Commissioning Organization
Musical Traditions, Inc. • San Francisco, CA
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Paul Dresher and Steven Schick will create a new solo music-theater /performance work having a theatrical set comprised entirely of newly invented musical instruments created specifically for the piece. The artists’ goal is to create a new synthesis of music, movement, and theater in which these elements are fully integrated and inseparable from one another. The work will be directed by Rinde Eckert and be premiered in the spring of 2008. The Paul Dresher Ensemble will produce four performances in San Francisco, followed by numerous touring productions in the U.S. and abroad.
Listen: Paul Dresher's Overture (from The Tyrant)
Phil Kline • Composer
Wally Cardona • Choreographer
Commissioning Organizations
* Myrna Loy Center • Helena, MT
Dance Theater Workshop • New York, NY
WCV, Inc. • New York, NY
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INTIME will be a second collaboration by Kline and Cardona which will explore the dramatic potential of a full-sized high school marching band and the militaristic ferocity these groups historically posses. The piece will premiere in May 2007 at Dance Theater Workshop with further performances at the Myrna Loy Center in Helena, MT.
Listen: Phil Kline's The Blue Room
LINKS
Phil Kline
Dance Theater Workshop
The Myrna Loy Center
Mark Messing • Composer
Jim Lasko • Theater Artist
Commissioning Organization
Redmoon Theater • Chicago, IL
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Spectacle ’06 will be a site specific event set in Columbus Park on Chicago’s west side. The production will involve physical action, crafted inventions and live music reflecting the “prairie-style” landscape architecture of the park.
Listen: Mark Messing
LINKS
Redmoon Theater
Vijay Iyer • Composer
Rachel Dickstein • Theater Artist
Commissioning Organization
Ripe Time, Inc . • Brooklyn, NY
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Betrothed will be a new movement-based theater work that presents the relationships of three different women to marriage, sex and the quest for independence. By integrating complex textures of sound, movement and storytelling, the piece will explore Eastern and Western ceremony to dramatize woman’s search for identity.
Listen: Vijay Iyer's De Gaulle
LINKS
Vijay Iyer
Ripe Time, Inc
Leroy Jenkins • Composer
Mary Griffin • Librettist
Commissioning Organizations:
*Roulette Intermedium • New York, NY
Providence Productions International • New York, NY
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Bronzeville will be a “docu-opera” focusing on the legendary South Side of Chicago from the 1920’s through the 1960’s when this neighborhood was a center of extraordinary creativity and African American culture.
Listen: Leroy Jenkins' Um Cha Chi Chum
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Roulette
Zeena Parkins • Composer
John Jasperse • Choreographer
Commissioning Organizations:
*Thin Man Dance • New York, NY
Brooklyn Academy of Music • Brooklyn, NY
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Scavenger will be a dance piece arising from the premise that nothing can be bought for the production. It will explore the themes of capitalism and the phenomena of waste. Scavenger will premiere in the Fall of 2007 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Listen: Zeena Parkins' Triple Lap Dance
LINKS
Zeena Parkins
John Jasperse
Todd Richmond • Composer
Paz Tanjuaquio • Choreographer
Commissioning Organization
TOPAZ Arts • Woodside, NY
Soundless Music will be a dance piece based on a manuscript written by a very young Yoko Ono in 1952, just a few years after the nuclear attack on Hiroshima.
Listen: Todd Richmond's To be or (2b flat)
LINKS
TOPAZ Arts
Stephan Moore • Composer
Yanira Castro • Choreographer
Commissioning Organization
Yanira Castro + Company • New York, NY
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Center of Sleep is a dance installation concerned with divesting a theater of its theatrical instruments in order to explore the idea of “innocent space” and the possibility of an unmitigated experience. The desire is to create a space absent of preconceptions, where there are no familiar visual or aural cues as to how to approach the piece. For the audience, the experience will be one of immediate immersion in an intimate world that envelops and undulates around them without predictable boundaries.
Listen: Stephan Moore's Falling Forward
LINKS
Yanira Castro + Company
Anthony Gatto • Composer
Bill Morrison • Filmmaker
Commissioning Organization:
Zeitgeist • St. Paul, MN
Walker Art Center • Minneapolis, MN
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The Making of Americans will be a multimedia stage work combining the forces two ensembles (Zeitgeist, a chamber ensemble, and Ethel, a string quartet), texts by Gertrude Stein, archival footage, and newly created visuals. The piece premieres at the Walker Art Center in late 2007 and will tour to other locations in Minnesota and the North East.
Listen: Anthony Gatto's Black Dog/Lucky Dog
LINKS
Zeitgeist
Walker Art Center
*Denotes Lead Organization
