NakedEye returns to Zoetropolis with new works and new composers exploring politics and identity, with a tribute to poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who died just shy of 102 years old on February 22, 2021, and the great composer George Crumb, who passed away on Febraury 6 of this year in his home in Media, PA.
PROGRAM
Rusty Banks: Glim (2022, world premiere)
George Crumb: Eine Kleine Mitternachtmusik (A Little Midnight Music) (2001)
Theresa Wong: The Secret of Growth (2022, second performance)
—INTERMISSION—
Jerome Kitzke: I Am Waiting (2020, second performance) – based on poems by Lawrence Ferlinghetti (with guest actor/singer Lisa Karrer)
Jerome Kitzke
About Jerome Kitzke (b.1955)
I delight in working with language to tell stories or give a point of view, and love working with musicians who are willing to produce vocal sounds as supplements to the usual sounds of their instruments.
My pieces have been written for instrumentations ranging from solo toy piano up to large orchestral choral and have been played around the world, reaching places as far flung from North America as Australia and China.
When last at MacDowell in 2020 I completed a large commission for NakedEye Ensemble called I Am Waiting, an anti-Trump piece using Lawrence Ferlinghetti poems that was to be premiered in May of 2020. Due to COVID-19, the premiere was postponed and will be rescheduled once a vaccine is in general use and things are back to some semblance of normal. Goodness gracious!
→ New Music Box interview of Kitzke by Frank J. Oteri: Stories That Must Be Told
About Theresa Wong (b.1976)
Theresa Wong is a composer, cellist and vocalist active at the intersection of music, experimentation, improvisation and the synergy of multiple disciplines. Bridging sound, movement, theater and visual art, her primary interest lies in finding the potential for transformation for both the artist and receiver alike.
Theresa Wong
Following inquisitive paths into song forms, video, just intonation, movement and visual media, her works include As We Breathe, an installed song commissioned by Long Beach Opera for the 2020 Songbook, She Dances Naked Under Palm Trees, commissioned by pianist Sarah Cahill for The Future Is Female project, and Harbors, co-composed with Long String Instrument inventor Ellen Fullman and chosen as one of The Wire’s top 50 releases of 2020. Her multi-media piece, The Unlearning (Tzadik), 21 songs for violin, cello and 2 voices inspired by Goya's Disasters of War etchings premiered in 2013 at Roulette in Brooklyn and was also presented at the 2016 New Frequencies Festival at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Current and past commissions include works for Splinter Reeds, The San Francisco Girls Chorus, Vajra Voices, and Del Sol String Quartet.
She collaborates with many singular artists, including Fred Frith, Luciano Chessa, Annie Lewandowski, Chris Brown, Frantz Loriot, John McCowen, Søren Kjærgaard, Carla Kihlstedt, and filmmaker Daria Martin. In 2018, Wong founded fo’c’sle, a record label dedicated to adventurous music from the Bay Area and beyond, featuring inaugural releases by Ellen Fullman with David Gamper and Stuart Dempster, Chris Brown, Powerdove and the Lijiang Quintet.
She has shared her work internationally at venues including Fondation Cartier in Paris, Cafe Oto in London, Festival de Arte y Ópera Contemporánea in Morelia, Mexico, The Stone in New York City and Centennial Hall in Sydney. Wong is a Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellow and has also been an artist-in-residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts, Lijiang Studio and Yaddo. She currently works and resides in the San Francisco Bay Area.
About Rusty Banks (b.1974)
Rusty Banks is a composer/guitarist born in Jasper, Alabama and living in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. His compositions have been performed in China, Taiwan, France, Italy, Belgium, Croatia, Germany, The Netherlands, Iceland, Canada, and Mexico, as well as throughout the United States. Besides writing concert music for ballet, orchestra, wind ensemble, and other acoustic ensembles, Rusty designs pieces that use traditional performers, user-end electronics, and video within dynamic audio/video installations.