r
SONG FROM THE UPROAR
NEW MULTIMEDIA MINI-OPERA
premiering MAY 29th!!!
Galapagos Art Space, Brooklyn, NY
VISIT www.songfromtheuproar.com for more info and tickets
Song from the Uproar is a new multimedia production by composer Missy Mazzoli, performed by NOW Ensemble and vocalist Abigail Fischer, with accompanying films by Stephen Taylor and stage direction by Gia Forakis.
This 40-minute work is based on the life and writings of Isabelle Eberhardt, a Swiss woman who, in the late 1800's, traveled to North Africa in search of adventure and spiritual fulfillment. As a converted Muslim and a member of a Sufi cult, she passed herself off as a man in order to traverse the strict gender divide and travel without restriction. She produced two novels (one unfinished), several short stories, newspaper articles, and five volumes of journals. At age twenty-seven she was killed in a flash flood in the desert.
Through a combination of newly created music, sung text and film, the audience is completely immersed in the surreal landscapes of Eberhardt's life. We witness her ecstatic journey to Africa, her struggle to come to grips with the death of her family, her exuberance at falling in love, and her efforts to define herself as a writer, a nomad and a unique spirit. Vocalist Abigail Fischer sings text adapted from Eberhardt's journals, accompanied by five-piece group NOW Ensemble, all against the backdrop of Stephen Taylor's moving and exotic films, created specifically for this production.
Song from the uproar was underwritten by the American Composers Forum with funds provided by the Jerome Foundation, with additional support from Free Speech Zone Productions.
ABOUT MISSY MAZZOLI
Missy Mazzoli's music has been performed all over the world by ensembles including the Minnesota Orchestra, the Spokane Symphony, eighth blackbird, the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Present Music, NOW Ensemble, Da Capo Chamber Players, the American Modern Ensemble, Newspeak and Ensemble Klang. Her work was recently performed as part of the MATA Festival of New Music, the Bang-on-a-Can New Music Marathon, the 2007 Cabrillo Festival of New Music, and Kathy Supove's Exploding Piano series. In 2006 Missy was a featured composer at Merkin Hall in New York City and at the Gaudeamus New Music Festival in Amsterdam. She is a recipient of the 2007 and 2008 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Award, a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and grants from the American Music Center and the Jerome Foundation. In 2006 she taught beginning composition at Yale University, and is now Executive Director of the MATA Festival of New Music in New York City, an organization founded by Philip Glass dedicated to commissioning and promoting new works by young composers. Missy is also an active pianist, and often performs with Victoire (formerly Victrola), an ensemble she founded in 2008 dedicated exclusively to her own compositions.
LISTEN TO VICTOIRE HERE!
Missy was born in 1980 in the United States, and from 1998 to 2002 studied composition at Boston University with John Harbison and Charles Fussell. In 2002 she received a Fulbright grant and traveled to the Netherlands, where she studied with Louis Andriessen at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague. In 2004 she was composer-in-residence at STEIM, Amsterdam's center for electronic music. In 2006 she received her Masters at the Yale School of Music, where she worked with Aaron Kernis, Martin Bresnick and David Lang.
Upcoming projects include the premiere of Sound of the Light, a new work commissioned by Carnegie Hall, two performances of These Worlds In Us by the Minnesota Orchestra, and the premiere of new works commissioned by eighth blackbird and the Santa Fe New Music Ensemble. She also recently received a Jerome Foundation Grant to support the creation of The Oblivion Seekers, a large-scale multimedia work featuring NOW Ensemble and filmmaker Stephen Taylor that will premiere in New York City in May, 2009.
