Composer Wang Lu, whose “The Nothing Man and Other Tales” will have its premiere with Seattle Modern Orchestra June 3. (Matt Zugale)
This weekend, Seattle Modern Orchestra gives the world premiere of Wang Lu’s The Nothing Man and Other Tales. I wrote about this wonderful composer for TheSeattle Times:
“I’ve always been interested in storytelling,” says composer and pianist Wang Lu. “We all crave stories.”
Wang’s latest composition, “The Nothing Man and Other Tales,” taps into this human hunger by recounting a series of stories she discovered in a children’s book that her daughter has been enjoying. Her musical treatment transforms these tales into adventures for adult ears.
Following the triumph of her opera The Romance of the Rose, which received its world premiere at Long Beach Opera in February, Seattle Modern Orchestra presents Kate Soper’s evening-long chamber music theater work Ipsa Dixit (“She, herself, said it…”) at Cornish College of the Arts’ Raisbeck Auditorium this weekend: Friday, March 24 and Saturday, March 25, both at 8PM.
Pulitzer Prize finalist Soper explores the intersections of language and music and has been described by Alex Ross as “a 21-century masterpiece … a ninety-minute tour de force …call it philosophy-opera.” Zachary Wolfe praised The Romance of the Rose‘s “ability to stick in the mind and soul.”
SMO’s performances will feature local soprano Maria Männistö alongside musicians Sarah Pyle (flute), Eric Rynes (violin), and Bonnie Whiting (percussion). This dramatic showcase will be directed by C. Neil Parsons and includes immersive lighting design.
Kate Soper is a composer, performer, and writer whose work explores the integration of drama and rhetoric into musical structure, the slippery continuums of expressivity, intelligibility and sense, and the wonderfully treacherous landscape of the human voice. She has been hailed by The Boston Globe as “a composer of trenchant, sometimes discomfiting, power” and by The New Yorker for her “limpid, exacting vocalism, impetuous theatricality, and mastery of modernist style.” A Pulitzer Prize finalist, Soper has received awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Koussevitzky Foundation, and has been commissioned by ensembles including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the American Composers Orchestra, and Yarn/Wire. She has received residencies and fellowships from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the Camargo Foundation, the Macdowell Colony, Tanglewood, and Royaumont, among others.
Praised by the New York Times for her “lithe voice and riveting presence,” Soper performs frequently as a new music soprano. She has been featured as a composer/vocalist on the New York City-based MATA festival and Miller Theatre Composer Portraits series, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s MusicNOW series, and the LA Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella Series. As a non-fiction and creative writer, she has been published by McSweeney’s Quarterly, PAJ, the Massachusetts Review, Theory and Practice, and the Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies.
Soper is a co-director and performer for Wet Ink, a New York-based new music ensemble dedicated to seeking out adventurous music across aesthetic boundaries. She is the Iva Dee Hiatt Professor of Music at Smith College. http://www.katesoper.com
Founded in 2010, Seattle Modern Orchestra (SMO) is the only large ensemble in the Pacific Northwest solely dedicated to the music of the 20th and 21st centuries. Led by co-artistic directors Julia Tai and Jérémy Jolley, SMO commissions and premieres new works from an international lineup of composers, in addition to presenting important pieces from the contemporary repertoire that are rarely if ever heard by Seattle audiences. The ensemble “operates at that exciting cusp between old and new, between tradition and innovation” (Vanguard Seattle) curating new sounds and experiences for concert goers in the region.
SMO provides audiences with performances of the best in contemporary chamber and orchestral music, and develops radio talks, lectures, and other forms of outreach in an accessible and inviting format all designed to expand the listener’s appreciation and awareness of the music of today. https://www.seattlemodernorchestra.org
Seattle Modern Orchestra has announced a thoughtful season of online concerts, which opens Friday evening (23 October 2020) at 7.30pm PST. Tickets are priced at a highly reasonable $10 to view online.
The season-opening virtual program includes the world premiere of Simultaneously Solitary composed by Tom Baker specifically in response to our socially distant experience. There will also be pieces for solo instruments by Lou Harrison, Edison Denisov, and Cornish faculty member Jarrad Powell. The Concert conclude withs In Memoriam Muhal Richard Abrams by Tyshawn Sorey.
More on the program from SMO:
ABOUT OUR FEATURED COMPOSER:
Tom Baker, Composer/Guitarist/Improviser/Electron-icist/Educator
Tom Baker has been active as a composer, performer, and producer in the Seattle new-music scene since arriving in 1994. He is the artistic director of the Seattle Composers’ Salon, co-founder of the Seattle EXperimental Opera (SEXO), an advisory board member of the Washington Composers’ Forum, founder of the new-music recording label Present Sounds Recordings, and is currently professor of composition at Cornish College of the Arts.
Tom has received awards and grants for his work from many organizations, including Meet The Composer, the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, 4Culture, and Artist Trust. He has been an artist-in-residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida and the Montalvo Arts Center in California. His works have been performed throughout the United States, in Canada, and in Europe.
Tom is also active as a performer and improviser, specializing in fretless guitar and live-electronics. He has recorded seven albums, including two solo records. Triptet, a trio with Michael Monhart and Greg Campbell, recently released its third album, Figure in the Carpet, on Brooklyn-based Engine Records. Tom has worked with many innovative musicians, including Stuart Dempster, William O. Smith, Christian Asplund, Chinary Ung, Ellen Fullman, Matana Roberts, and Henry Threadgill.Copyright 2010-2020 Seattle Modern Orchestra. All rights reser
MEMETERIA by Thomas May 