Music

Asphalt Orchestra’s Stephanie Richards on “Trading Futures”

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A statement from composer Stephanie Richards of Asphalt Orchestra for the performers and witnesses about her work for the Common Moment, Trading Futures:

Essentially, futures trading can be defined as such: investing in or against the future success of a given commodity.  Last Friday, as a community, we embraced the present moment and began the mission of investing in the success of our futures. We embraced alternative and creative ways to appreciate the very things that fuel our daily lives. A tin can became a musical instrument, a dance partner, an artifact of industrial design: a collective heartbeat.  We examined the place newspapers and the media have in our society and questioned their intentions and reach of power. Embracing the importance of education, statistics, and questioning our sources for information. Becoming a vessel for theatrical emotional expression, we literally roared in frustration from the overwhelming mass of media disinformation, ripping our newspapers in half and in the end moving collectively as a community toward one, same, unified goal: the success of our future.

Earlier that day, you discussed the determinacy of oil, and its limited future.  That we are dependant on a commodity with a limited lifespan foretells a future we very well need to trade. In embracing creative alternatives (through art, education, science), we will find a solution. You discussed the disappearance of wetlands of Southern Louisiana and their inherent loss of culture as a result. And yet we performed a piece of music last Friday with rhythms and homage to the Zydeco musical tradition, encouraging the longevity of a vibrant part of American tradition.

It was important to me that we challenged our ideals of what constitutes a musical instrument and challenged preconceived notions of what could be considered art.  It was also a priority to use recycled and highly recycle-able materials in consideration for the future we owe ourselves and future generations to come.  Tin cans, fabric and newspapers were donated from both the Wesleyan community and Materials For the Arts in New York City.

Each instrument and choreography that you all performed has meaning to me conceptually and compositionally. But I will wrestle my urge to explain the abundant literal and abstract meanings I have envisioned and encourage you to find your own message in each movement and instrument. Ultimately, its significance and beauty exists only in your consideration and embrace.

Lastly, I’d like to thank Pamela Tatge, Barbara Ally and Erinn Roos-Brown at Wesleyan’s Center for the Arts for making the event possible.  I’d like to thank Mark DeChiazza for his creative insight and collaboration in choreographing the event.  And lastly, thank you to Asphalt Orchestra and Wesleyan’s class of 2015 for the privilege of composing for you and performing with you.

A full score complete with aerial images of choreography and directions are posted on my website for you all.

Don’t Hide the Madness: An Antithology

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An interview with Morgan Hill ’14 by Shira Engel ‘14.

On May 3, the day after Mike Rosen’s senior project was performed in Memorial Chapel, I just knew that I had to interview a member of this group he put together. Morgan Hill, a willing member of the Om Collective, sat down to talk to me about the process of putting together this synchronous, multifaceted, and interdisciplinary project.

The Om Collective, Morgan says, is “an excuse to hang out and do pretty things. It’s an integration of artists from [creative campus icons like] Mad Wow, Wordsmith, weSLAM, which means dancers, poets, emcees, drummers, singers, horn players, guitarists, DJs, and sound engineers. I am honored to be included as a freshman in this group of people who decided to do performance art in a way we hadn’t seen done.”

Don’t Hide the Madness followed the framework of a spoken word performance, but strayed suitably. It was appropriately done in Memorial Chapel, where the Night Kite Revival performed earlier this year.

It all started with a vague idea. Mike contacted a group of artists on campus that he felt were right for the mission of the project. They met at his house one late night at the beginning of the semester to discuss how their diverse talents and styles might come together. Of the collaborative process, Morgan says, “There are a lot of different interests among the members and with those different interests, we can say something new about pop culture, poetry, and art. We can perform spoken word for what it is, showing it is just as legitimate an expression as anything else. The point was to experience the Self on entirely its own terms. We got to make art in the way we really wanted to make it.”

The intention of the performance, which combined spoken word, dance, singing, bass, and audience participation, had to do with Wesleyan as a creative campus, how it fosters art in a variety of forms and is part of a collective of universities pioneering a new one: poetry as performance art. Morgan explains that “slam is hyper-condensed into the past ten years.” It is fairly magical that Wesleyan can play such a huge role in cultivating an art, a means of self-expression and communal appreciation, that is still legitimizing itself.

I asked Morgan what it was like to integrate all these art forms. She responded, “We wanted to provide an explanation for what has been happening on this campus. We’re saying that this is something new that can be seen differently. This is where poetry can be right now; performance art as a denial of a formal structure is dangerous, but so cool, so cathartic.”

She continues with what I believe to be the perfect note to end this post on: “[At Wesleyan] you have so many people that are so talented in many different ways. Why wouldn’t you want to bring them together, all the time?”

WesWinds: Rides, Dances and Chaos!

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An interview with Ariel Lesnick ’14 by Shira Engel ’14.

Ariel Lesnick is an enthusiastic student in the class of 2014 in the Wesleyan Wind Ensemble, WesWinds. She has been playing the clarinet since third grade and did not want to stop once she came to college. Lucky for her and for WesWinds, she got to continue playing and performing music as a part of this fun group. I interviewed her about her experience with WesWinds and how the ensemble prepared for their spring concert which took place on May 3, Rides, Dances and Chaos!

WesWinds is not simply a group for Wesleyan students; it is an integrative force that bridges the gap between the Wesleyan campus and the surrounding Middletown community. Ariel says of this coming together, “I sit next to a middle-aged man, a boy in high school, and another Wesleyan student. It reminds me that the real world exists and that music can bring people together.”

Peter Hadley, the conductor, has been at Wesleyan for seventeen years. His familiarity with the group is apparent in how he gently leads them and the audience through the music with his wonderful British accent. WesWinds is a full music credit for Wesleyan students. Rehearsal is once a week on Tuesdays from 7pm to 10pm. Ariel says that in the rehearsals, it is apparent what WesWinds is all about. “What’s unique to the group is that there are professional musicians and they really know what they’re talking about. Then there are kids who are fourteen and their moms sit and read while we practice.”

Of the concert, Ariel revealed, “We have an electric guitar soloist and he just shreds it. It’s the kind of music that is fun. I hope the audience had as much fun listening as we had playing. It’s hard in a concert because we know everything that went into it. We know all these components so I just hope the audience got what they wanted out of the concert. There are so many crucial factors that it is hard to take them all in. They are fun funk pieces.”

And I, as an audience member, noticed that they all “shredded it.” Ariel, front and center, played the clarinet with passion and talent, as did everyone else with their wide variety of instruments. It flowed seamlessly because they were having fun with the music and had an apparent desire for the audience to have fun as well. It was eclectic in a very Wesleyan way – with instruments from Home Depot (pails as drums) played next to more professional-looking electric guitars. The experimentalism entrenched in the performance was contagious and evidence of what Wesleyan students and the Middletown community are capable of as collaborators and music-makers.

Cardinal Sinners, May 8

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Watch this short video of the Cardinal Sinners rehearsing “It Don’t Have To Change” by John Legend in the Music Studios on May 3:

Rehearsal: Cardinal Sinners “It Don’t Have To Change” 5/3/11

The Cardinal Sinners Spring Concert will take place on Sunday, May 8, 2011 at 8pm in World Music Hall.

As Wesleyan’s oldest all-female a cappella group, the Cardinal Sinners have developed an eclectic repertoire of songs for performance on the Wesleyan University campus, as well as benefit events in the greater Middletown community.

West African Drumming and Dance, May 6

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Watch this short video of a rehearsal for the West African Drumming and Dance
 performance:

Rehearsal: West African Drumming and Dance 5/3/11

Don’t miss this invigorating performance, filled with the rhythms of West Africa! Drumming and dance students (and guest artists) will perform under the direction of Abraham Adzenyah and choreographer Iddi Saaka on Friday, May 6, 2011 at 3pm in the 
CFA Courtyard 
(rain location: Crowell Concert Hall). 
Free admission.

Ebony Singers Spring Concert and Reunion

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An interview with Maggie Cohen ’12 by Shira Engel ‘14.

In anticipation of the Ebony Singers 25th Spring Reunion Concert on April 24, I had spoken with Maggie Cohen, member and student of the Ebony Singers gospel choir. Cohen has been singing since middle school and when she got to Wesleyan, she missed having that in her life, but did not want to join a cappella or another formal singing group. She joined Ebony because of the powerful spirituality the choir sings about. Right before their concert, she provided me with some background about Ebony Singers.

Ebony Singers is a gospel choir composed of 150 students. It is also a class, which counts for half a credit and is cross-listed under the African American Studies and Music departments. It is a class because of the time commitment and the energy the students put into it and the end concert. Students come together to sing every Monday night. You don’t have to be Christian to be in it, but they sing Christian music.

Of her experience with Ebony, Maggie says,

“The whole point of Ebony Singers is not necessarily about being fantastic singers. It’s more about interacting with people and getting people to be excited and inspired and to have them be involved so that people who come to the concert feel a part of it. It’s not about being perfect or having the notes exactly right. It’s more about having the energy and heart in what we do.”

Leading up to the concert, the band would come in and the soloists started to practice within the group. Eventually, they practiced in their fancy dress and on the day of, they practiced in the Crowell Concert Hall, the site of the performance.

The concert was my first live gospel performance and Pastor Monts immediately made me feel included, even as an audience member in the back row of a packed concert hall. He went to Wesleyan as an undergrad and this is his twenty-fifth year directing Ebony. Maggie says that he ends every rehearsal by instructing the students to hug their neighbors as he shares a prayer or piece of spiritual guidance. He believes it is a joy to work with college students and to remind them that spiritual grounding can exist through their voices. Judging by the enthusiastic and interactive responses from the audience, that was certainly the case.

Celebrating the Earth This Weekend

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An interview with composer Glen McClure, and footage from a rehearsal of “Fascinating! Her Resilience”, by Elizabeth Holden ’11.

Celebrate the Earth this Friday and Saturday night at Wesleyan! Two free events will bring science and art together through multi-dimensional live performances that tackle questions about global environmental issues.

As a poet/performance/multimedia artist, Professor of Anthropology Gina Ulysse is dedicated to performing anthropology through spoken word. As a member of the College of the Environment think-tank, she will be performing as part of the Earth Day Celebration on Friday, April 22 at 8pm in Crowell Concert Hall. The multimedia performance project Fascinating! Her Resilience will explore the multiple significations in the word “resilience”, and how it has been used in different narratives about Haiti, especially since the earthquake of January 12, 2010. In collaboration with Val Jeanty, percussionist and sound engineer, the project will be expressed through both a live and electronic remix (using DJ techniques) of different theories of resilience from a range of disciplines. There will be bits of history, personal narratives, theory and statistics in spoken word, with Vodou chants interwoven with quotations from subjects interviewed in Haiti and other experts in this country. Moreover, it will explore how in dominant narratives, such meanings keep Haiti in a liminal state somewhere on the border between dehumanization and superhuman.

Click here to view a rehearsal of Fascinating! Her Resilience on Vimeo.

The next night, in collaboration with the inaugural year of the College of the Environment, the Center for the Arts will present the world premiere of Dear Mother Earth: An Environmental Oratorio by composer Glenn McClure on Saturday, April 23 at 7pm in Crowell Concert Hall.  I sat down with Glenn McClure to discuss his commissioned piece for Wesleyan’s Feet to the Fire initiative.

Glenn McClure
Glenn McClure

As part of Feet to the Fire, which seeks to explore the topics of global climate change, Dear Mother Earth began as an extracurricular art activity with school children across the world, including Middletown’s MacDonough Elementary.  Mr. McClure, composer of the oratorio and an arts integration specialist, asked school children in Ghana, Nicaragua and Middletown to write letters to the Earth. “While each letter is unique, they all share the central themes of celebrating beauty, thankfulness, compassion and a call to action,” said McClure.  “Just as a flock of individual birds turn together in the wind without any discernable leader, these children have expressed these themes in their letters and illustrations.” Mr. McClure then integrated the themes of the letters with a musical model of the bio-mathematics concept of “emerging complexity” to create a series of musical movements centered around the common environmental hopes of the children.

The resulting piece uses sections of the children’s letters along with a mixing of musical forms, such as a traditional string orchestra with the dynamic percussion of Ghana.  McClure states that “by bridging gaps between the different dimensions of music, we are establishing a creative process that brings people together.” McClure fuses the Wesleyan University Orchestra, the Middletown All-City Grade 4 and 5 Chorus, and Caribbean steel drummers together in the first movement to open the overall themes that emerged from the letters.

Barry Chernoff, Professor of Biology and Director of the College of the Environment, believes that Wesleyan will be the place for students to solve climate change issues.  Designed to seek solutions to the greatest environmental challenges of our time, Dr. Chernoff stated “we are not afraid of failure, we only fear no one will try.” By thinking creatively and collaboratively, we are one step closer to finding solutions to these complex issues.  The remaining movements of McClure’s work range from woodwind quartets and Ghanaian drummers to the full orchestra, painting a soundscape through the flowing stream of data collected by Chernoff’s student lab since 2006.

The message of this performance is universal in its approach towards understanding the complex layers of climate change.  Through its practical idealism, Dear Mother Earth is intended to spark a conversation about what we can do about the environmental issues that we face. The project will continue after the world premiere on April 23 through the website www.letterstomotherearth.com, encouraging other classrooms to engage with the project and to continue the process of submitting letters addressed to the Earth.

Because of Mr. McClure’s combination of childrens choir and orchestra in his composition, the sound of the music is approachable in terms of being a traditional oratorio, but he also adds into the piece a diverse layer of unexpected ensemble sounds, such as Taiko and Ghanaian drumming.  I am excited to see the full composition performed because of its consciousness of Wesleyan’s power as an innovative engine for creative solutions. I am sure Dear Mother Earth will foster a sense of communal experience between the performers and the audience.

Wesleyan Earth Day Celebration
Including the performance of “Fascinating! Her Resilience”
Friday, April 22, 8pm
Crowell Concert Hall
Free admission

Wesleyan University Orchestra and 
Wesleyan Ensemble Singers Concert
Featuring the world premiere of “Dear Mother Earth: An Environmental Oratorio”
Saturday, April 23, 7pm
Crowell Concert Hall
Free admission

Wesleyan Earth Day Celebration: Fascinating! Her Resilience

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Gina Ulysse, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Wesleyan University, and composer/turntablist Val-Inc invite you to attend the free Wesleyan Earth Day Celebration on Friday, April 22, 2011 at 8pm in Crowell Concert Hall:

Wesleyan Earth Day Celebration on YouTube

Gina and Val will perform “Fascinating! Her Resilience” about the significance of the word “resilience” in relation to the different narratives about Haiti in the post-earthquake cultural environment.

The celebration will also feature students and faculty participating in the College of the Environment‘s inaugural think-tank on the topic “Vulnerability of Social, Economic and Natural Systems to Environmental Stress”. College of the Environment Director Barry Chernoff will introduce reports by Jeremy Isard (College of Social Studies), Dana Royer (Earth and Environmental Sciences), Phoebe Stonebraker (Biology) and Gary Yohe (Economics).

There will also be a performance of an excerpt of Dear Mother Earth: An Environmental Oratorio by composer Glenn McClure.

Spotlight on Cheryl Tan ’11

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An interview with Cheryl Tan ’11 by Sarah Wolfe ‘12.

The Old Maid and the Thief
The Old Maid and the Thief

Cheryl Tan, a senior music and theater major, will present her senior project The Old Maid and the Thief by Gian Carlo Menotti on Sunday, April 10 at 7pm in Crowell Concert Hall. I sat down with Tan, who plays Laetitia, to discuss the performance and her process. The opera, one in a series of one-act operas composed by Menotti in the middle of the twentieth century, follows the tradition of radio opera. Tan produced the piece more as staged reading than as a traditional opera.

The story takes place in the home of two women: the old maid Miss Todd (Meghan Twible ’12) and her serving maid, Laetitia (Cheryl Tan ’11). They are visited by a beggar, Bob (Matthew Getz ’14) who requests food, “and they let him stay because they’re lonely and sad,” as Tan summarizes.  Worrying that Bob may be a recently escaped fugitive from a few towns over, they nonetheless allow him to stay in their house in order stave off their loneliness. In order to keep him there, they begin to steal from other townspeople. “It’s really about a bunch of awful people being awful to each other, which is great,” quips Tan.

Chelsea Goldsmith ‘13, rounds out the cast by playing the neighbor, Miss Pinkerton. Tan chose this particular Menotti opera because it asks for a small cast.  Originally drawn to the Italian American composer through a challenging aria she encountered, Tan decided early on that she did not want to perform a solo recital. Opera has not been one of Tan’s focal points in her time at Wesleyan, but is the culmination of her work with Voice Teacher Priscilla Gale, who specializes in the operatic style. “I’ve done a lot of musical theater, jazz, theater and taiko,” says Tan, “[but] I’ve been with [Priscilla Gale] for three years, and she’s really made my voice into what it is today. The great thing about this for me right now is that I’m singing every day. Which means everything’s getting stronger, and that’s really exciting.”

The Old Maid and the Thief offers the chance to experience a memorable performance. Sung in English, the cast features four excellent Wesleyan singers, as well as Andrew Chung ’11 on the piano. “Going to be great,” ends Tan, “Going to be so good.”

“The Old Maid and the Thief” will be presented in Crowell Concert Hall on Sunday April 10 at 7pm. Admission is free.