2017 NYC Festival Program Booklet

THE

2017

RESONANT BODIES FESTIVAL

RESONANT BODIES FESTIVAL

Welcome!

It is my pleasure to welcome you to the fifth-annual Resonant Bodies Festival in New York City. RBF began in 2013, with a mission to catalyze the creation of new vocal music, expand new vocal music’s audience, and challenge and transform the role of the vocal recitalist.

To my delight, critics, performers, and audiences have greeted our efforts with sustained acclaim.

Four years later, we have reached a new chapter in the Festival’s evolution: expanding beyond New York City. This past May, I visited Melbourne for the first-ever Resonant Bodies Festival Australia. It was thrilling to dive into the musical culture of the city and hear local artists. The experience profoundly affected me as a curator, widening my scope of what we call “contemporary music”—who belongs to it, and for whom it is performed. As we continue to take Resonant Bodies to new places, we will adapt our format to the culture of the location, which means sometimes changing how we do things. This brings up the question: what is at the core of Resonant Bodies Festival?

The answer is always: freedom. Empowering artists with curatorial control. And in this, RBF’s aim is quietly revolutionary: for much of the history of Western classical music, vocalists were trained to be “vessels”—instruments at the (typically male) composer’s disposal. The autonomous vocalist and performer, empowered to realize their own creative potential, is a radical paradigm shift. We believe the art form as a whole will correspondingly advance when vocalists have “full voice” in the process and are treated as creative, self-actualizing beings.

We have awakened a sense of community among new-music vocalists. RBF gives them a space to develop their creative and curatorial ideas, and its now-international community sparks exciting collaborations. RBF has also significantly stimulated the growth of new vocal repertoire—in four years, more than 60 works have premiered on our Festival—and provides wide exposure for these new works. Between our performances and rich digital resources (see page 24 to read about Resonant Bodies Podcast, MRMR, and the Contemporary Vocal Music Database), we have created a model with traction. We have established a platform for individual singers to inform and inspire one another and their audiences, resulting in an energy of bold artistic discovery and appreciation.

We are so grateful this year for new foundation support: The Aaron Copland Fund, The Alice M. Ditson Fund, The Amphion Foundation, The Ellis L. Phillips Foundation (providing major support for our expansion beyond NYC), New Music USA (a two-year grant for NYCbased ensembles and presenters), and The BMI Foundation. And, of course, to the individuals who have supported us all along the way—we truly could not be here today without you. Thank you for your generosity and support.

So, happy fifth birthday, ResBods! I am so proud of all you have done, and all you will do.

Lucy Dhegrae Founder/Director, Resonant Bodies Festival

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The 2017

Resonant Bodies Festival September 5th to 7th, 2017 Roulette | 509 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, NY

Tuesday, September 5th 7:30pm 8:15*

Theo Bleckmann Jennifer Walshe

page

2 4

—intermission—

9:30*

Davóne Tines

6

Wednesday, September 6th 7:30pm 8:15*

Hai-Ting Chinn Joan La Barbara

8 10

—intermission—

9:30*

Odeya Nini

12

Thursday, September 7th 7:30pm 8:15*

Mary Bonhag Kamala Sankaram

14 16

—intermission—

9:30*

Kayleigh Butcher

18

*exact start-times for later sets may vary slightly each night

www.resonantbodiesfestival.org

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Theo Bleckmann Tuesday, September 5th, 7:30pm

Songs in Color and Black and White (2000-2017) Theo Bleckmann (b. 1966) voice, live electronics, and piano

Nitai Hershkovits, piano

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About the Performers A jazz singer and new-music composer of eclectic tastes and prodigious gifts, Grammynominated Theo Bleckmann makes music that is accessible, sophisticated, unsentimentally emotional, and seriously playful. Bleckmann has released a series of gorgeous and irreverent albums on Winter & Winter, including recordings of Las Vegas standards, of Berlin Kabarett, and of popular “bar songs” (all with pianist Fumio Yasuda); a recording of newly-arranged songs by Charles Ives (with the improvisational jazz/funk collective Kneebody); and his Solos for Voice and Toys, where Bleckmann brought just his stunning vocal technique, his emotional commitment, and his suitcase full of oddly evocative voice-altering gadgets to the project of recording delicate songs and poems alone at a monastery in the Swiss Alps. In his highly-acclaimed CD release of 2012, Hello Earth - The Music of Kate Bush, Bleckmann managed to bring an entirely new and quite gorgeous perspective to the songbook of the British pop recluse. 2013 saw the release of Mother Goose Melodies, a return to Bleckmann’s uniquely interpretive collaborations with Fumio Yasada. In 2014, Bleckmann toured Europe with Ambrose Akinmusire and recorded with Julia Hülsmann’s trio, for a 2015 album release on ECM. Bleckmann has collaborated with a remarkable roster of contemporary musicians and composers, including Laurie Anderson, Peter Eldridge, Philip Glass, Kate McGarry, Sheila Jordan, Luciana Souza, Michael Tilson Thomas, Kenny Wheeler, John Zorn, Bang on a Can All-Stars, and, most prominently, Meredith Monk, with whom Bleckmann worked as a core ensemble member for fifteen years. His uniquely flexible and colorful voice has also inspired compositions by, among others, Michael Gordon, David Lang, Ikue Mori, Kirk Nurock, Julia Wolfe, and, prominently, Phil Kline, who wrote three major song cycles for Bleckmann: Zippo Songs (2004), Locus Solus (2006), and Out Cold (2012), which premiered at BAM's new Fischer Building in 2012. www.theobleckmann.com Born in Israel to a Morrocan mother and a Polish father, Nitai Hershkovits started playing the clarinet at age 12, and discovered his love for the piano at age 15. He has performed with Jorge Rossy, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Greg Tardy, Charles Davis, Mark Guiliana, Zohar Fresco, Steve Davis Diego Urcola, and Robert Sadin, and recorded with Daniel Zamir, flutist Ilan Salem, and Avi Lebovich. He has performed at venues including the Salle Pleyel, Vienna Konzerthaus, l’Olympia, Alter Oper, North Sea Jazz Festival, Antibes Jazz Festival, Jazz à Vienne, Montreux Jazz Festival, Barbican Center, and Tonhalle, amongst others.

Hershkovits frequently collaborates and records with internationally-acclaimed bassist and composer Avishai Cohen. He joins Avishai on the albums Duende (EMI/Blue Note), Almah (EMI/Parlophone), and From Darkness. Hershkovits’s debut album, I Asked You a Question (Raw Tapes), was released in February 2016. He was awarded the highest scholarship given by the Israel-American Music Foundation (AICF) four years in a row, and received a B.A. degree from the Jerusalem Rubin Academy of Music.

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Jennifer Walshe Tuesday, September 5th, 8:15pm

The Church of Frequency & Protein (2010) Music: Jennifer Walshe (b. 1974) Text: Kara Feely & Jennifer Walshe voice, trumpet, trombone, cello, guitar, piano, percussion NEW YORK CITY PREMIERE

International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) Nathan Davis, percussion Ross Karre, percussion Katinka Kleijn, cello Daniel Lippel, guitar Weston Olencki, trombone Cory Smythe, piano Nathan Wooley, trumpet

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About the Program “Cast adrift in a post-apocalyptic future, the scientists were free to pursue experimentation at the farthest fringes of science. They pioneered work in hard artificial intelligence, developed selfreplicating nanobots, proved the existence of dark matter. As the years passed, however, the extreme isolation of the situation began to take its toll. Gradually they came to believe that the answers to the universe’s most profound questions were to be found in the pop cultural detritus of the 20th century.

The scientists saw the pop culture of this time as the expression of a universal mind, the product of interactions between vast numbers of morphic fields; a pathway to an infinitely-expanding consciousness. Their experiments investigated the ability of the kill screens of 1980s videogames to open portals in the fabric of space and time; the effect of kung fu movies on quantum phase spaces; how internet memes might be used to become immortal.” —Dermot Fitzpatrick

The Church of Frequency & Protein draws on material from Walshe’s opera The Geometry, commissioned by Object Collection with funds from the Arts Council of Ireland, premiered in New York in 2010. With special thanks to: Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity is Near; Rupert Sheldrake Seth Gordon’s The King of Kong, a documentary about competitive arcade game players battling to achieve the highest score on Donkey Kong; H+ magazine, the journal of the transhumanist movement; I’m in ur basement killing your d00dz; The Best Soap Opera Death Scenes ever; The Hagakure or Book of the Samurai by Yamamoto Tsunemoto; Aubrey de Grey; Life Extension Foundation; Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS) Foundation; Tom Selleck Waterfall Sandwich; Michael Gonzalez’s Donkey Kong walkthroughs; The Evolution & Transhumanism IRC chat rooms; The Cybernetic Beingness Revival (CyBeRev) project, a website where visitors can upload individual units of their consciousness so that their Digital Mindfile will ensure they will live long after their physical body has passed on.

About the Performers “Without a doubt, hers is the most original compositional voice to emerge in Ireland in the last 20 years.” —Michael Dervan, The Irish Times

Jennifer Walshe was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1974. She studied composition with John Maxwell Geddes at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Kevin Volans in Dublin, and graduated from Northwestern University (Chicago), with a doctoral degree in composition in 2002. Her chief teachers at Northwestern were Amnon Wolman and Michael Pisaro. In 2000, Jennifer won the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis at the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Darmstadt. In 2008, she was awarded the Praetorius Music Prize for Composition by the Niedersächsisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kultur. In 2009, she lived in Venice, Italy, as a guest of the Fondazione Claudio Buziol. She is currently Reader in Music at Brunel University, London. Jennifer’s work has been performed and broadcasted all over the world by ensembles such as ensemble récherche, Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, Crash Ensemble, Con Tempo Quartet, ensemble ascolta, and Q-02, among others. Walshe has written many operas, ranging from XXX_LIVE_NUDE_GIRLS!!! (2003) for Barbie dolls and ensemble, to most recently Die Taktik, an opera commissioned by the Junge Oper Stuttgart, which received 14 performances in Stuttgart in 2012. In addition to her activities as a composer, Jennifer frequently performs as a vocalist, specialising in extended techniques. Many of her compositions are commissioned for her voice either as a soloist or in conjunction with other instruments, and her works have been performed by her and others at festivals such as Ultima (Norway), Wien Modern, the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt, Stockholm New Music, and Lucerne Festival (Switzerland). Jennifer is also active as an improviser, performing regularly with musicians in Europe and the U.S., and in her duos: Ma La Pert with Tony Conrad, and Ghikas & Walshe with Panos Ghikas. Other collaborators include film-maker Vivienne Dick and Drew Daniels’ The Soft Pink Truth. www.milker.org The International Contemporary Ensemble is an artist collective committed to transforming the way music is created and experienced. As performer, curator, and educator, ICE explores how new music intersects with communities across the world. The ensemble’s 35 members are featured as soloists, chamber musicians, commissioners, and collaborators with the foremost musical artists of our time. Works by emerging composers have anchored ICE’s programming since its founding in 2001, and the group’s recordings and digital platforms highlight the many voices that weave music’s present. A recipient of the American Music Center’s Trailblazer Award and the Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, ICE was also named the 2014 Musical America Ensemble of the Year. ICE currently serves as artists-inresidence at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival; previously led a five-year residency at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; has been featured at the Ojai Music Festival since 2015; and has appeared at the Acht Brücken Cologne and Musica nova Helsinki festivals, Park Avenue Armory, The Stone, ice floes at Greenland’s Diskotek Sessions, and boats on the Amazon River.

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Davรณne Tines Tuesday, September 5th, 9:30pm

Memorial Were You There Traditional Sweet Lil Jesus Boy Traditional A Clear Midnight (2015) Matthew Aucoin (b. 1990) Nobody Knows Traditional Every Time I Feel the Spirit Traditional Amazing Grace Traditional

Davรณne Tines and Michael Schachter, arrangements Michael Schachter, piano & electronics Davรณne Tines, set Zack Winokur, director

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About the Artists Davóne Tines, deemed a "…singer of immense power and fervor…” by the LA Times and a “...charismatic, full-voiced bass-baritone...” by the New York Times, commands a broad spectrum of opera and concert performance as a singer and creator. Highlights from last season include performances with the Dutch National Opera, Finnish National Opera, Orchestre national de France, London Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, LA Philharmonic, and Ojai Music Festival, in collaborations with Kaija Saariaho, John Adams, Mattew Aucoin, Caroline Shaw and Peter Sellars. Upcoming performances include engagements with the Paris Opera, San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Symphony, LA Philharmonic, BAM, the Baltic Sea Festival and the American Repertory Theater.

Michael Schachter (b.1987 in Boston, MA) is an Ann-Arbor-based composer, pianist, scholar and teacher. Highlights of the current season include commissions by the American Repertory Theater, the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, a consortium of eleven wind ensembles led by the University of Michigan, Harvard University’s Band and Choruses, and saxophonist Emmett Rapaport, as well as additional performances by the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra, the Boise Philharmonic, the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, the Masterworks Chorale and Orchestra, and chamber ensembles around the United States. In recent years, Michael’s music has been commissioned and performed by ensembles such as the Minnesota Orchestra, the Naples Philharmonic Orchestra, Alarm Will Sound, the 21st Century Consort (the resident new music ensemble of the Smithsonian institution), the Concord Chorus and Orchestra, the Contemporary Directions Ensemble, the Vocal Essence Ensemble Singers, and the New York Virtuoso Singers.

Stage director, choreographer, dancer, Zack Winokur, born in Boston, MA is a graduate of the Juilliard School. Upcoming projects include: directing L’incoronazione di Poppea at the Cincinnati Opera, an immersive mash up of Gluck’s Orfeo and Matthew Aucoin’s Orphic Moment at the Rose Theater in Lincoln Center, Monteverdi’s Ballo delle Ingrate with William Christie at Juilliard, A Little Night Music at the Royal Theatre Carré in Amsterdam, Barbiere di Siviglia at the Dutch National Opera, Svadba at the Festival Ljubljana, choreographing Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie at Juilliard, and conducting masterclasses at the Dutch National Opera Academy.

His most recent show in NYC, Cavalli's Venetian baroque masterpiece La Calisto for The Juilliard School, was hailed as “one of the most elegant and imaginative shows seen in New York this season” in Opera News. It garnered raves in a plethora of other publications including the New York Times and Vogue and received a nomination for Best Production of the Year in Opernwelt, the only American production to be nominated. Other recent work has been seen in the music video The Virus for A Tribe Called Red and at the Dutch National Opera (The New Prince–World Premiere), Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Grand Theatre de Luxembourg, (Svadba–European Premiere), La Nuova Musica at St. John’s Smith Square (Dido and Aeneas), La Monnaie, Aldeburgh Music, Dutch National Opera, (Les Mamelles de Tirésias), Juilliard Opera (Le Nozze di Figaro, Il Turco in Italia, Der Kaiser von Atlantis), the Royal Opera House (Most of the Boys–World Premiere).

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Hai-Ting Chinn with Erika Switzer, piano Wednesday, September 6th, 7:30pm

Selections on Astronomy and Cosmology from Science Fair: An Opera with Experiments Natural Phenomena Renée Favand-See (b. 1972), text by Marie Curie One of the Key Features Matthew Schickele (b. 1969), text by physicist Lisa Randall Our Solar System Renée Favand-See, text by Hai-Ting Chinn and astronomer Phil Plait Some people try to tell me Matthew Schickele, text by Phil Plait History of the Universe, Part 1 Matthew Schickele, music and text The Canon Stefan Weisman (b. 1970), text by science writer Natalie Angier History of the Universe, Part 2 Orbit Matthew Schickele, text by Hai-Ting after Phil Plait/Crash Course Astronomy History of the Universe, Part 3 Matthew Schickele, slideshow art by Maki Naro Libration Matthew Schickele, text and animation by NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Phases of the Moon Matthew Schickele, text by Hai-Ting after astronomer Pamela Gay/AstronomyCast Voyager Looks Back at a Pale Blue Dot Hai-Ting Chinn, text by Carl Sagan WORLD P REMIERE

Triumphatrix Lindsey Kesselman , voice Kirsten Sollek , voice

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About the Program Science Fair was originally produced and premiered at HERE Center for the Arts as part of the HERE Artist Residence Program (HARP). The full production, with stage direction by Lisa Rothe, also includes songs and demonstrations on the physics of sound waves, the structure of atoms, the evolution of cellular life on Earth, and quirky reflections on the scientific way of thinking.

Scientific thought, at its finest, attempts to evaluate the universe in ways that minimize human biases and prejudices. In the current heated atmosphere surrounding social and cultural discourse, I feel that it is vital to remember that we have other ways of interacting with the cosmos, the Earth, and our fellow life-forms. Science Fair is my ode to the scientific endeavor—and to the courageous, creative humans who practice, promote, and teach it.

For a complete libretto and composer program notes, please visit: hai-ting.com/sciencefair or hai-ting.com and use menu option “Science Fair.”

About the Artists More information on individual performers and composers can be found at their websites: Erika Switzer, pianist and music director: erikaswitzer.com Matthew Schickele, composer and librettist: matthewschickele.com Renée Favand, composer: reneefavand.com Stefan Weisman, composer: stefanweisman.com Maki Naro, visual artist: makinaro.com Trio Triumphatrix (triumphatrix.com) is: Lindsay Kesselman, soprano (lindsaykesselman.com) Hai-Ting Chinn, mezzo-soprano, librettist and composer (hai-ting.com) Kirsten Sollek, contralto (www.triumphatrix.com/kirsten)

Science Fair, like science itself, is an ongoing project. In the spirit of scientific peer review, should you feel that anything in this show is either inaccurate, misleading, or could be better stated in another way, please let us know, and we will consider revisions for the next version of the show. Feel free to send suggestions by email to mail@hai-ting.com, or follow the contact link at hai-ting.com.

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Joan La Barbara Wednesday, September 6th, 8:15pm

The River Also Changes (2017) Joan La Barbara solo amplified voice, handheld percussion, and sonic atmosphere PREVIEW OF WORK-IN-PROGRESS

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About the Program I am very focussed at this moment in time in developing works that inform or reflect my thinking about the opera I am in the process of composing, inspired by the life and work of the American visual artist, sculptor, and filmmaker Joseph Cornell, and the iconic British writer Virginia Woolf.

Although they never met, I have found fascinating connections in their lives, especially the singular, nearly obsessive qualities of their work and their complicated gender issues. The River Also Changes is a study for a space in which beings from different times and locations can commingle and relate, albeit wordlessly. Scored for live vocal overlay and sonic atmosphere— a mosaic of interwoven textures formed of multiple voices, instruments, electronics, and natural sounds—I have created a shape-shifting landscape where little is solid and everything is permeable. The live overlay allows for seamless elaboration and interaction with the atmospheric materials. The River Also Changes is presented at Resonant Bodies Festival 2017 as work-inprogress and premieres in a version for two voices, chamber ensemble and sonic atmosphere at Klangspuren Schwaz in Austria on September 17, 2017.

About the Performer Joan La Barbara, composer, performer, sound artist, actor, is renowned for developing a unique vocabulary of experimental and extended vocal techniques (multiphonics, circular singing, ululation, and glottal clicks, her “signature sounds”), influencing generations of other composers and singers. Awards and Honors: Foundation for Contemporary Arts John Cage Award (2016); Premio Internazionale Demetrio Stratos for experimental music; DAAD-Berlin and Civitella Ranieri Artist-in-Residencies; Guggenheim Fellowship; 7 National Endowment for the Arts (Music Composition, Opera/Music Theater, Inter-Arts, Recording, Solo Recital, Visual Arts), and American Music Center’s Letter of Distinction for her significant contributions to contemporary American music. Her numerous commissions for multiple voices, chamber ensembles, orchestra, interactive technology, and soundscores for dance, video, and film, including a score for voice and electronics for Sesame Street broadcast worldwide since 1977.

Her multi-layered textural compositions have been presented at Brisbane Biennial, Festival d'Automne à Paris, Warsaw Autumn, MaerzMusik Berlin, among other international venues. Her iconic graphic score and recording for her seminal work Circular Song is included in This is a Voice exhibition at Wellcome Trust in London and MAAS in Sydney, Australia. She has collaborated with visual artists Matthew Barney, Judy Chicago, Ed Emshwiller, Kenneth Goldsmith, Bruce Nauman, Steina, Woody Vasulka, and Lawrence Weiner, and premiered landmark compositions written for her including Morton Feldman’s Three Voices; Morton Subotnick’s chamber opera Jacob’s Room, and multi-media works Hungers and Intimate Immensity; Robert Ashley’s operas Now Eleanor’s Idea, Dust, Celestial Excursions, Improvement, and Concrete; Philip Glass and Robert Wilson’s Einstein on the Beach; Steve Reich’s Drumming; John Cage’s Eight Whiskus and Solo for Voice 45 from Song Books; and Alvin Lucier’s Palimpsest (2014) and Double Rainbow (2016). In addition to her internationally acclaimed recordings of Feldman and Cage, her seminal works from 1970’s Voice is the Original Instrument and Sound Paintings (Lovely Music) and Shaman-Song (New World), and Mode Records’s 2017 Blu-Ray surround-sound release The Early Immersive Music of Joan La Barbara, she has recorded for A&M Horizon, Centaur, Deutsche Grammophon, Nonesuch, Music & Arts, MusicMasters, Musical Heritage, New Albion, Newport Classic, Sony, Virgin, Voyager, and Wergo. She is a featured actor in artist Matthew Barney’s film/opera River of Fundament and Aleksandar Kostic’s award-winning film Parallel Dreams, as well as composing the music for the latter. Her music from Erin is featured in Jóhann Jóhannsson’s film score for Arrival (2016), and she created the character voice for the “Alien Newborn” in the film Alien Resurrection.

Commissioned by and for The Young People’s Chorus of New York City, A Murmuration for Chibok, with lyrics by Monique Truong, honors the Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped in 2014, keeping them in present awareness. Premiered in 2016, it was a focal point of the 2017 Bang on a Can marathon and is now touring worldwide. Exploring ways of immersing the audience in her music, La Barbara placed musicians and actors throughout Greenwich House Music School for her music/theater piece Journeys and Observable Events, allowing the audience to explore the building, unveiling theatrical and sonic events; and seated the American Composers Orchestra around and among the audience in Carnegie Hall’s Zankel auditorium, building her sonic painting “in solitude this fear is lived”, inspired by Agnes Martin’s minimalist drawings. Her new song cycle, The Wanderlusting of Joseph C., with lyrics by Monique Truong, premiered at Roulette in May 2017. Artistic Director of Carnegie Hall’s multi-year series “When Morty Met John”; co-founder of composers-collective Ne(x)tworks; artist faculty at New York University, teaching music composition; Performing Arts faculty of Mannes/The New School; composer and publisher member of ASCAP; member of SAG-AFTRA and AEA; she is composing a new opera inspired by the lives and works of Virginia Woolf and Joseph Cornell, exploring the artistic process, interior dialogue, and sounds within the mind. joanlabarbara.com

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Odeya Nini

Wednesday, September 6th, 9:30pm

A Solo Voice (2017) Pacific Idioglossia Primary Colors Other Tones Breathing Room Pleasure Principle New Found Land

Odeya Nini (b. 1982) solo voice EAST COAST PREMIERE

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About the Program Evolving over the last seven years, A Solo Voice by Odeya Nini is an investigation of resonance, extended vocal techniques, performance, and pure expression, exploring the relationship between mind and body and the various landscapes it can yield. The work is a series of malleable compositions and improvisations that include field recordings and theatrical elements, aiming to dissociate the voice from its traditional attributes and create a new logic of song that is not only heard but seen through movement and action. In a multi-dimensionality that serves to both provoke and soothe in abstract communication, the voice is presented in its spectrum of natures as it travels through cultures, ages, emotions and colors, like photographs, with tender intimacy and bold aberrance.

Tonight’s performance presents new work for A Solo Voice, developed in 2017. The themes of pleasure, patience, surrender, withholding, the unknown, repetition, interruption, ecstasy, the universe, and Mother Nature have been central to this work—all of which are in my new experience of motherhood. —Odeya Nini

About the Perfomer Odeya Nini is a Los-Angeles-based experimental vocalist and contemporary composer.

At the locus of her interest are performance practices, textural harmony, gesture, tonal animation, and the illumination of minute sounds, in works spanning chamber music to vocal pieces and collages of musique concrète. Her solo vocal work extends the dimension and expression of the voice and body, creating a sonic and physical panorama of silence to noise and tenderness to grandeur. Odeya has collaborated extensively with dancers, visual artists, filmmakers and theater directors as both a composer and soloist, and has worked with artists and ensembles such as Meredith Monk, Butch Morris, and Lucy & Jorge Orta. Her compositions have been performed, recorded, and produced by new-music ensemble wild Up and The Industry opera company.

Odeya's work has been presented at venues and festivals such as the Hammer Museum, REDCAT, Joyce Soho, MONA, and Art Basel Miami; from Los Angeles to Tel Aviv, Australia, Mongolia, Madagascar, and Vietnam. In addition to performing and composing, she leads Voice Bath meditations and Free The Voice workshops, comitted to the empowering and healing qualities of voice and movement. Odeya holds a BFA from the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music and an MFA in composition from California Institute of the Arts.

Her debut album, Vougheauxyice (Voice) for solo voice, was released in April of 2014 on pfMENTUM records. www.odeyanini.com

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Mary Bonhag Thursday, September 7th, 7:30pm

Changing Light (2002) Kaija Saariaho (b. 1952) soprano and violin

Two Poems of Agueda Pizarro (1980) 1 Shadowinnower 2 Black Anemones

Joseph Schwantner (b. 1943) soprano and piano

excerpts from Looking at Spring: Meditations on Aging (2014) 1 2 7 11 13 15

Mornings Nobody Dies Anymore With Grandchildren As Long as I Remember My Children A Paradoxical Thing Last Uncle Left

Lembit Beecher (b. 1980) soprano, piano, violin, viola, cello, double bass NEW YORK PREMIERE

Hamilton Berry, cello Margaret Dyer, viola Anna Elashvili, violin Evan Premo, double bass Liza Stepanova, piano

texts: pages 21-22

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About the Program Weaving these three pieces together this evening is, among other things, the concept of surrender. In the Sariaaho, surrender to the Divine and to human frailty; in the Schwantner, surrender to ritual and explosive color; and in the Beecher, surrender to the aging process. This seems to be a common theme in my singing life, as in my non-singing life—that all the richness, all the pain, all the intensity of being a human on this earth is in preparation for the ultimate act of faith, when we all will some day return to the Source. This is music of prayer, of ecstasy, of earthiness. Of what it means to be human. Of the power of music and the voice to ease the enormity of this understanding. Of resonance and relationship. Thank you for listening.

Lembit Beecher writes: “Looking at Spring was commissioned in 2014 by Scrag Mountain Music, whose artistic directors, Mary Bonhag and Evan Premo, are musicians are longtime friends. I worked on this project with another friend, the librettist, actress and director Liza Balkan who shared an interest in creating art through documentary processes and an interest in the stories of older people. We began by conducting a series of interviews with senior citizens about the aging process. I was particularly interested in the way that rituals in life emerge as we age, but Liza would simply start interviews by asking, “How old are you?” and “What is that like?” and then let the stories and conversation flow. From long recordings, Liza pulled out poetic passages that seemed to crystallize what a person was saying. A few of the these ended up as multi-page poems and one was just one line: a woman with an early stage of dementia who said that things would be ok “as long as I remember my children.” Despite their immense variety, running through all of these texts was a thoughtfulness, a sense of priorities, and an understanding of perspective that I found illuminating and touching. It was a joy to work with words that were so present, filled with vibrant details and the poetry of small things.”

About the Performers The “extraordinary” (Classical Voice America) soprano Mary Bonhag is captivating audiences around the country with her “marvelous versatility” and “supple, expressive” voice (San Antonio News). Passionate about the development and performance of new music, Bonhag has premiered and commissioned numerous pieces for voice, including works by Evan Chambers, Lembit Beecher, C. Curtis-Smith, Shawn Jaeger, Padma Newsome, and Evan Premo (The Diaries of Adam and Eve). Bonhag was hailed by The New York Times as giving a “wrenching portrayal” in a 2009 workshop performance of David T. Little’s Dog Days at Carnegie Hall, and she offered a “riveting performance” of Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3 with the Vermont Philharmonic in 2017, delivering “the subtle drama of the vocal line with a quiet expressiveness that plumbed the words’ depth gorgeously” (Rutland Herald, VT). A consummate collaborator, Bonhag has performed with the Aizuri Quartet, Decoda, and the Spektral Quartet, as well as at chamber music festivals around the country, including Cactus Pear, San Francisco Contemporary Players, 21st Century Consort, and Yellow Barn. Bonhag is co-artistic director of Scrag Mountain Music, along with composer/double bassist Evan Premo. Together, they organize chamber music residencies and innovative, affordable concerts around Vermont.

Pianist Liza Stepanova has performed at the Berlin Philharmonie, Carnegie Hall, and the Kennedy Center. A member of the CAG-winning Lysander Piano Trio, she has worked with composers including William Bolcom, Gabriela Lena Frank, and Jennifer Higdon. Stepanova holds a doctorate from The Juilliard School and is a professor at the University of Georgia.

Violinist Anna Elashvili, hailed as "riveting" by the New York Times is a core violinist of Decoda, an Affiliate Ensemble of Carnegie Hall. She performs with the East Coast Chamber Orchestra, NOVUS NY, Mark Morris Dance Orchestra, Exponential Ensemble and was the first violinist of the Bryant Park Quartet. Anna currently teaches at the Special Music School High School, the Young Artist Program at Yellow Barn and the Decoda|Skidmore Chamber Music Institute.

Cellist Hamilton Berry performs with Decoda, Con Brio Ensemble, Toomai String Quintet, Founders, A Far Cry, and Novus NY. He is also on the faculty of Musicambia, which offers music lessons to inmates at Sing Sing Correctional Facility. He received his M.M. from Juilliard, where he studied with Timothy Eddy.

Margaret Dyer Harris was recently named Assistant Principal Viola of the Santa Fe Opera. She is a member of The Knights and she has performed with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and as guest principal with the Sarasota Orchestra. Margaret was a fellow in Carnegie Hall's Ensemble Connect from 2010-2012.

Bassist and composer Evan Premo is a founding member of Decoda—an internationally touring chamber music collective. As a member of Ensemble ACJW, Evan performed regularly at Carnegie Hall and in international residencies. Evan is co-founder of Scrag Mountain Music, dedicated to presenting innovative and affordable chamber music in central Vermont.

16 | RESONANT BODIES FESTIVAL

Kamala Sankaram Thursday, September 7th, 8:15pm

Ololyga (2017) Kamala Sankaram voice and electronics WORLD P REMIERE

A Manual for the Use of Wings (2003) Bone Needles (2006/2017)* Gilda Lyons (b. 1975) solo voice *WORLD PREMIERE OF SOLO VERSION

excerpts from BABEL(maya) (2012) 2 brokenAphorism_26 3 PortRait_9,**NYC12 4 brokenAphorism_27 Pat Muchmore voice, cello, electronics

Gopher Mambo Moisés Vivanco (1918-1998), arr. Sankaram Bombay 5-0 Tuco’s Last Stand Sankaram voice/accordion, saxophone, percussion, guitar, bass

Pat Muchmore, cello Bombay Rickey Brian Adler, percussion Drew Fleming, guitar Jeff Hudgins, alto saxophone Gil Smuskowitz, bass

RESONANT BODIES FESTIVAL | 17

About the Program Inspired by Ann Carson’s essay The Gender of Sound, Ololyga explores aspects of the female voice associated with madness and witchcraft. The ololyga is a particular shriek uttered in the practice of ritual. Through extended range, dynamic shifts, and vocal techniques, the line between beauty and wildness is explored. —Kamala Sankaram A Manual for the Use of Wings: Through little-girl eyes, I remember paging through maps and instruction books like they were invitations to other worlds. Legends, lines transcribing a distance, assembly charts, and diagrams can create secret languages that reveal themselves in powerful ways. A Manual for the Use of Wings extends from my fascination with cartography and instruction books, and reaches toward the notion of unspoken truths associated with the exploration of unassisted flight. The vocalist is directed through a series of sonic gestures utilizing sustained straight tones that bloom into vibrato, neighboring figures, glissandi, breath attacks, palm-to-chest body percussion, microtonal variation, audible breathing, and a host of other vocal sounds. (S)he is provided with specific instructions on how to “allow wings to unfold naturally,” “explore movement,” “begin to experience lift,” “now, fly,” among other actions. Composer and performer together work toward the deeply private language of personal flight. —Gilda Lyons A collection of abstract vocal sounds, Bone Needles is fueled by the possibilities for direct communication through voice even without words. Markings within the score (“summoning” “weaving” and “casting off”) guide an exchange that I imagined after watching a group of women in Nicaragua repairing nets on the beach with long needles made from fish bones. After a thin, sharp object—which might very well have been one of their bone needles— pierced my foot on that same trip, the image of their sewing took on a richer meaning: as they continued to mend their nets, I was at work mending in a different way. In this solo version of Bone Needles, originally written for two voices, a single voice works through and weaves between rhythmic cells and percussive gestures, driven by an inward taskcentered focus that manifests itself in an outward musical expression. —Gilda Lyons BABEL(maya): The three movements we’re playing tonight consist of two small, intimately-related voice/cello duets that bookend a larger piece for solo voice and pre-recorded electronics. The bookend pieces explore similar material, but shuffle that material in substantially different configurations. Both movements feature some melodies conceived in different kinds of musical languages—Gregorian chant notation, Shakuhachi notation and Ancient Greek notation—and they also feature several fractal, or self-containing, melodies that are performed at different speeds simultaneously. These last ideas also appear throughout the central movement, in which the singer sings along with pre-recorded copies of herself at different tempos. The lyrics are just repetitions, in dozens of different languages, of the first message ever sent via telegraph: “What hath God wrought?”

About the Performers Praised as “strikingly original” (New York Times), Kamala Sankaram has received commissions from Beth Morrison Projects, HERE Arts Center, Opera on Tap, and Anthony Braxton’s Tri-Centric Orchestra, among others. She is the recipient of a Jonathan Larson Award from the American Theater Wing, and has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, MAP Fund, Opera America, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Meet the Composer, the Augustine Foundation, the Anna Sosenko Trust, and the Asian Women’s Giving Circle. Residencies and fellowships include the MacDowell Colony, the Watermill Center, the Citizens, HERE Arts Center, CAP21, Con Edison/Exploring the Metropolis, the Hermitage, and American Lyric Theater. As a resident artist at HERE Arts Center, Kamala created MIRANDA, a steampunk murder mystery, which was the winner of the New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Production of a Musical. THUMBPRINT, her second opera (written in collaboration with playwright Susan Yankowitz), premiered in the 2014 PROTOTYPE Festival, and was featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition, Agence French Presse, and over 25 media outlets around the world. THUMBPRINT was recently produced as part of the 2016/17 season at LA Opera and Opera Ithaca. As a performer, Kamala has been hailed as “an impassioned soprano with blazing high notes” (Wall Street Journal). She has performed with and premiered pieces by Anthony Braxton, Beth Morrison Projects, the Philip Glass Ensemble, the Wooster Group, Anti-Social Music, and Petr Kotik, among others. In addition to her musical pursuits, Kamala has been a voice actor on Comedy Central’s Superjail and Cartoon Network’s Golden Age, and holds a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the New School for Social Research. kamalasankaram.com Praised as “a true treat for the adventurous ear” (TimeOut NY), Bombay Rickey is a five-piece band with a unique sound evocative of 1960s movie soundscapes. The group plays both covers and original music that borrow equally from the worlds of surf rock, cumbia, spaghetti-Western, and Bollywood, balanced out with soaring operatic vocals. Since its inception in 2012, Bombay Rickey has become a fixture at Brooklyn mainstay Barbés, as well as having played live on WFMU, opened up for Cambodian psychedelic band Dengue Fever, and having been featured in an ad for Citibank. Bombay Rickey’s debut album, Cinefonia, was named best debut of 2014 by New York Music Daily and received the Vox Pop Award for Best Eclectic Album from the International Music Awards. Most recently, Bombay Rickey was invited to create an opera cabaret based on the life of Yma Sumac for the prestigious PROTOTYPE Festival in New York City. The show ran for seven sold-out performances and was hailed as a “rocking musical show” by the Wall Street Journal.

18 | RESONANT BODIES FESTIVAL

Kayleigh Butcher Thursday, September 7th, 9:30pm

Space (2011) LJ White (b. 1984) Katelyn Halpern, choreography voice and piano

Apple Butter (2017) 1 Pretty, please 2 begin with a little girl Cara Haxo (b.1991)

Miro Magliore and Cara Haxo, choreography solo voice WORLD P REMIERE

Ogloudoglou (1969) Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988) Katelyn Halpern, choreography voice and woodblock

Sandpit (2017) Daniel Felsenfeld (b.1970) Miro Magliore, choreography voice and violin WORLD P REMIERE

A Is Term In History Of in Form While (2017) Sivan Cohen Elias voice, various instruments, video, live electronics WORLD P REMIERE

HOW TO BOOK (2017) Andrew Tham (b. 1989) solo voice and VR video for performer WORLD P REMIERE

Hajnal Pivnick, violin texts: page 22

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About the Program I often set poetry by my friends; the text of Space is by David Ebenbach, a writer living in Washington D.C. I love the physical space present in the poem—short words and phrases, frequent line breaks, concise ideas—conveying as well as describing isolation. I used remote outposts of piano and vocal register, fragmented text setting, and reverberation to support this acute sense of loneliness. —LJ White Apple Butter deals with physical appearance. Despite the vocalist’s desperation in the opening lines, the text of the first movement whimsically describes her desire for the purity of a perfectly peeled apple “without a speck of red or green.” Such purity, however, comes at a cost, as the rotting apples skins and core reveal the next day. In the second movement, the vocalist seems to have aged tremendously, her innocence replaced by weariness. Her body collapses in on itself, and she loses the strength to finish her final words. Throughout the work, the vocalist’s path around the stage mirrors her loss of innocence as imposed by societal expectations of physical appearance. —Cara Haxo Not much is known about Ogloudoglou, but then again, not much is really known about Scelsi, yet. I found this piece randomly when I was in my graduate school music library in Bowling Green, OH. I had heard about Scelsi but didn’t really know about his music or his process quite yet. My group Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble has recorded Scelsi’s Sauh liturgy on our second studio album, hushers, and having done that beautifully monstrous piece and a few other short duos, I’ve come to realize how much he really enjoyed those close dissonances and exploring microtonality with similar voices. What strikes me about Ogloudoglou is that there are huge leaps through the piece. There are also the trademark microtones and variance in vibrati and percussive speech, but the overall tonality is so different than his other vocal writing. I wish I could at least explain what the term “ogloudoglou” means or what it references but alas, there’s no writing whatsoever on this piece or this word. In fact, when I Google-searched “ogloudoglou meaning,” I got a mere three pages on Google with no real results other than ways to buy the sheet music online. In 2017, who gets only three pages of Google results?! Even after his death, Scelsi continues to maintain his privacy in this age of technology. —Kayleigh Butcher Sandpit: When I was in my late teens—in the late eighties—it was impossible for me not to have had a crush on Lydia Lunch. She was a sexually free punk goddess who seemed, through her astonishingly unhinged, open-throttle books like Incriminating Evidence (much of this book written in all caps, prose that felt dangerous and terrifying and damn alive, and to boot she appeared topless on the back cover), communicated a world of freedom to which a suburban boy like myself could only aspire. This bluntness was cut through with poignance, sadness, and the exhaustion of (as we said in those days) “Living out loud.” Or, to be more honest, if some lived out loud, she lived at a decibel-shattering volubility. So, imagine my surprise when I approached her, years on, and she gifted me with Sandpit, a monologue she delivered in a now-gravelly voice, attractive for entirely different reasons. It is of course an honor to write for Kayleigh and Hajnal, but also, as an older and ostensibly wiser person, to hearken back to those times with a nostalgia that age has weaponized. The piece is dedicated to the two performers and the author, three astonishing women who I am honored to know. —Daniel Felsenfeld A Is Term In History Of in Form While: A computer programmer is faced with a riddle at the edge of a rabbit hole. —Sivan Cohen Elias

RESONANT BODIES FESTIVAL | 20

About the Artists Hailed for her “flawless rhythms and nuanced articulations” as well as her “formidable talent” by I Care If You Listen, Kayleigh Butcher has gained critical and audience acclaim as a soloist and contemporary chamber musician all over the country. As a fervent supporter and advocate for contemporary music, Butcher has also worked with many composers including David Lang, Tristan Perich, Eve Beglarian, Holly Herndon, John Luther Adams, and Jennifer Jolley. She has also collaborated with new music ensembles including Eighth Blackbird, Third Coast Percussion, Ensemble Dal Niente, Opera on Tap NYC, thingNY, Fonema Consort, a.per.i.o.dic, and Rhymes With Opera. Butcher is a founding member and the director of Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, an all-female, a cappella vocal quartet that explores experimental vocal techniques and improvisation.

Quince has performed on many contemporary series, festivals, and at prestigious venues such as Chicago’s Ear Taxi Festival, Fast Forward Austin, Chicago’s Pritzker Pavillion in Milennium Park, and Omaha Under the Radar Festival. www.kayleighbutcher.com Hungarian-American violinist Hajnal Pivnick was born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee.

She advocates for the performance and promotion of music written in the 20th and 21st century, and works extensively as an educator and arts administrator. She is co-founder of Tenth Intervention, a collective of musicians that presents new music in New York City.

Hajnal performs regularly with IRIS Orchestra, ensemble mise-en, and Quartet Metadata, and has played with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, and the Hungarian New Music Chamber Ensemble (UMZE). In New York, she performs in venues ranging in scope from The Park Avenue Armory to Joe’s Pub to Carnegie Hall. As a soloist, she has performed with the Association for the Promotion of New Music, the New Music Gathering at Bowling Green State University, the Casa de las Américas in Havana, Cuba, and the Tribeca New Music Festival. Hajnal is a member of the violin faculty at Interlochen Arts Camp, and maintains a violin studio at Greenwich House Music School, Opus 118 Harlem School of Music, and Lucy Moses School at Kaufman Music Center. She is also a chamber music coach with the Face the Music/Kronos Quartet program. She holds a Bachelor of Music from Carnegie Mellon University where she studied with Andrés Cárdenes and an Artist Certificate and Master of Music from the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, Hungary, studying with Eszter Perényi.

Lauded as "refreshingly original" by Alastair Macaulay of the New York Times, choreographer Miro Magloire is the founder and artistic director of New Chamber Ballet.

Magloire has created over 60 ballets in his signature style for his company, all distinguished by sweeping elegance, a striking theatricality, and bold musical choices. "It's heartening to see work so focused on the meeting of dance and music,” Macaulay wrote in his Times review, “always you're aware of an intelligence at work that resists romantic cliché." Known for his visionary collaborations with musicians—singers, violinists, pianists and large ensembles—Magloire has a special affinity for cutting-edge contemporary music, which has led him to work with many of today's leading composers.

Born in Munich, Germany, Magloire started his career as a composer. At age 17, he won the “Forum of Young Composers Award” in North Rhine-Westphalia, and went on to study with Mauricio Kagel at the Conservatory of Music in Cologne, Germany. After relocating to New York to study Modern Dance at the Ailey and Martha Graham Schools, where his teachers included Yung-Yung Tsuai and Kazuko Hirabayashi, and ballet with Wilhelm Burmann and Peff Modelski among others, he turned his attention to choreography and in 2004 founded New Chamber Ballet. www.newchamberballet.com Katelyn Halpern is a dancemaker, teacher, and interdisciplinary collaborator from Austin, Texas. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Houston with a B.A. in English Literature and a minor in Dance before moving to the east coast in 2010. In addition to directing the freshly minted company Katelyn Halpern & Dancers, she performs with the bi-coastal piano + dance duo K A T E S, co-creates the zine Under Glass, and makes interactive labyrinths and dance installations for Do a Dance! Recent presenters include New York’s chashama, Dixon Place, Triskelion Arts, CATCH, the Flea, WestFest, Figment NYC, Firehouse Space, and WAXworks, as well as Jersey City’s Art House Productions, Omaha’s Under the Radar Festival, and San Francisco’s Switchboard Presents. She lives in Jersey City. www.katelynhalpern.com

RESONANT BODIES FESTIVAL | 21

Changing Light

Text: Rabbi Jules Harlow (b. 1931) Light and Darkness, night and day.

We marvel at the mystery of the stars.

Moon and sky, sand and sea.

We marvel at the mystery of the sun.

Twilight, high noon, dusk and dawn.

Though we are mortal, we are Creation’s crown.

Flesh and bone, steel and stone.

We dwell in fragile, temporary shelters.

Grant steadfast love, compassion, grace.

Sustain us, Lord; our origin is dust.

Splendor, mercy, majesty, love endure.

We are but little lower than the angels.

Resplendent skies, sunset, sunrise.

The grandeur of Creation lifts our lives.

Evening darkness, morning dawn.

Renew our lives as You renew all time.

Two Poems of Agueda Pizarro 1. Shadowinnower

Naked, fierce to the waist where the grass flows, strong sowing I comb my hair with sun teeth in solitude, the earth’s day.

A rolling fog, my damp hair is tangled. cradled in my death.

The battle of arms armed with combs against sleep tumbles in seeds, light falling on my belly.

While the dark dries at my fire feet my female mane, loosened, awakes, a crown in flames for the shadowinnower.

2. Black Anemones Mother, you watch me sleep and your life is a large tapestry of all the colors of all the most ancient murmurs, knot after twin knot, root after root of story.

You don’t know how fearful your beauty is while I sleep.

Your hair is the moon of a sea sung in silence.

You walk with silver lions and wait to estrange me deep in the rug covered with sorrow embroidered by you in a fierce symmetry binding with thread

of Persian silk the pine trees and the griffins.

You call me blind, you touch my eyes with black anemones .

I am a spider that keeps spinning from the spool in my womb, weaving through eyes the dew of flames on the web.

Looking at Spring: Meditations on Aging 1. Mornings We have a trailer.

I enjoy nature and things of that nature.

After breakfast I love to watch the birds out back.

I take my coffee go to the chair in the back room and watch see the squirrels.

2. Nobody Dies Anymore Nobody dies Read the obits.

Ha ha ha ha I use to count them—how many people died that day.

None.

Everybody passed In the loving arms of their family..

A courageous battle..

Lost…

Lost her husband I think: “You lost your husband?”

You are terribly tempted to say; “How? through carelessness?

Or was it deliberate?”

I think ..

“You lost your husband…

WHERE?” You didn’t lose him.

He died He did not Pass.

He died.

Please Please do not say I passed.

Or I was lost Please Please write: “She was definitely NOT lost.”

Ha ha ha NOT “lost.”

She died.

7. With Grandchildren

With grandchildren I see my part in the continuum My life is finite…

But life itself will go on and on and on and on.

RESONANT BODIES FESTIVAL | 22 So… that’s… um..

It’s a sweet and sour flavour.

I won’t see them, I won’t see them beyond…

I have no idea how old they will be when I ‘m last aware of them.

I won’t see them as old as you or I are now So that’s…

It’s not….

But…

9. Terminal Cars

I’ve had 4 terminal cars.

This really IS my terminal car.

A mazda 3.

I’m the only person in the world over the age of 25 that drives a mazda 3 I just love it.

It works like a bomb.

11. As Long As I Remember My Children “As long as I remember my children…”

13. Paradoxical Thing As I get older. I feel like I’m getting younger.

I’m happy.

Almost playful Almost frivolous Almost goofy I’m free As I get older, I feel younger.

It’s a paradoxical thing Does that make sense It’s a relief.

That’s it.

I’m free My cat and my piano I’m happy.

15. Last Uncle Left Last uncle left.

He was 82.

Barely left Barely spoken to him… in decades.

How to Book

Text: Andrew Tham How to sit as if being watched.

How to hydrate hair.

How to eat alone.

How to travel.

Apple Butter

1. Pretty, please Text: Carolyn Fado please peel my apple, so that it’s soft, sweet, white without a piece of red or green—I do not wish to know by sight.

You must take off the skin and try your best to keep the juice within.

You must not leave a speck of skin.

How juicy it will be to bite without the thickness of the peel, so I will taste in pure delight!

Please peel my apple.

Tomorrow, in the trashcan you will find rotting red skins of the apple of your eye, a broken brown core, and something more.

2. begin with a little girl Text: Emily Corwin

a very steep hole she falls (and falls) like a picked star in a big loose wood

They go.

Only one aunt Barely one aunt.

She sits Looking out.

Looking out Looking at…?

Parents are gone.

I am looking out Looking… at…

Spring.

much too old to body”

“I’m

tucking her underneath eating butter in a quiet scary

RESONANT BODIES FESTIVAL | 23

Supporters Thanks to our supporters! RBF 2017 would not be possible without you.

Cristóbal Arias Tony Arnold Jessica Aszodi Cary Phillips Auerbach Krists Auznieks Katherine Balch Lembit Beecher Gelsey Bell Sue Bienkowski David Bloom Jesse Blumberg Amy Books Ethan Braun Jason Thorpe Buchanan Carol Kalafut Burgos Kayleigh Butcher Christopher Cerrone Kelvin Chan Deirdre Chadwick Lydia Chapin Claire Chase Laura Cocks Elliot Cole Frank Corliss Colin Davin Arlene & Larry Dunn Jason Eckardt Linda and Barnaby Edwards Sam Edwards Gwen Ellison Susan Jacobs Feingold Christie Finn Andrew Fuchs Pala Garcia Milena Gligic Dmitry Glivinskiy Ariadne Greif Jeffrey Greif Benjamin Grow Sarah Haines Juliana Hall

Sharon Harms Elisabeth Halliday Nathan Heidelberger Chris Herbert Molly Herron Jeremy Hirsch Kyra Humphrey Ralph Jackson Chuck Jaeger Elisabeth James John Jarboe Molly Joyce Ross Karre Cliff Kerr Bridget Kibbey Isabel Kim Kyoko Kitamura Mary Kouyoumdjian Matti Kovler Lawrence Kramer Nathaniel Lanasa Rick and Laura Laub David T. Little Clarissa Lyons Sky Macklay Kate Maroney Tim McElroy Heather Meyer Keith Moore Alison Moritz Matthew Morris Andrew Munn Amy Nathan Angelica Negron Molly Netter Osnat Netzer Mark Nowak Mary Elizabeth O’Neill Janet Olszewski René Pallain Lukas Papenfusscline

Esin Pektas Jessica Petrus John Popham John Purins Adam Roberts Renate Rohlfing Margot Rood Victoria Roth Alex Rosen Joshua Rubin Evan Runyon Heidi Schaul-Yoder Susan Scheid Zach Sheets Jane Sheldon Lucy Shelton Sara Sitzer Alexia Smith David Smooke Ari Streisfeld Dennis Sullivan Nathaniel Sullivan Erika Switzer Christopher Trapani Jennifer Trombley Rohs Colin Tucker Dawn Upshaw Sugar Vendil Leaha Maria Villarreal Kirsten Volness James Waldo John Taylor Ward Melissa Wegner Samuel Wells Cameron West Jeremy Wexler Austin Wulliman Nina C. Young Du Yun Ilana Zarankin Daniel Zlatkin

We also gratefully acknowledge the support of the following institutions:

The Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University BMI Foundation The Aaron Copland Fund for Music Culture Ireland The Amphion Foundation Ellis L. Phllips Foundation

New Music USA

RESONANT BODIES FESTIVAL | 24

About RBF MRMR Music Resource & Media Room, RBF’s collection of online resources, includes:

Podcast The Resonant Bodies Podcast spotlights featured Festival vocalists, providing a year-round dialogue about vocalists and vocal music—what it means to be a solo vocal performer working in contemporary classical and experimental music. You can subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, and Google Play, or at www.resonantbodiesfestival.org/podcast.

SoundCloud The Resonant Bodies SoundCloud page features recordings from past festivals, playlists organized by artists and festival, and tracks for the 150 Days of Vocal Music—a collection of pieces chosen by RBF in the 150 days leading up to the 2017 Festival.

Vimeo & YouTube The Resonant Bodies Festival Vimeo and YouTube Channels comprise a growing archive of performance videos from each Festival.

Contemporary Vocal Music Database The Resonant Bodies Festival Contemporary Vocal Music Database is a crowd-sourced, searchable, open database that lists new works for solo voice, multiple voices, choir, and contemporary opera. Currently comprising over 800 entries, it also includes links to sounds, scores, and composers’ program notes. Anyone can submit works to the database—we especially encourage composers and vocalists to do this! To contribute, send an email to resbods@gmail.com.

Administration Staff Lucy Dhegrae Alexandra Porter Nathaniel Sullivan

director administrative associate operations administrator

Board of Directors Jean-Denis Marx Deirdre Chadwick Lucy Shelton

chairman

RESONANT BODIES FESTIVAL | 25

Donate Resonant Bodies Festival is a non-profit organization. Donations are tax-deductible. There are several ways to donate: Text Step 1: Text any dollar amount to 737-777-9607.

Step 2: Follow the directions sent in the reply.

Online Visit: http://www.resonantbodiesfestival.org/donate

Check Make checks payable to: Resonant Bodies Festival, Inc. Memo line: Donation Mail to: Resonant Bodies Festival / 254 Seaman Ave, Apt E6 / New York, NY 10034

www.resonantbodiesfestival.org