ROULETTE presents
20 Greene St (between Canal and Grand St)
8:00 PM Admission $15 Students $10 MEMBERS FREE
TICKETS/RSVP: 212.219.8242
contact: press@roulette.org http://www.roulette.org/
Saturday, November 3rd
Joan La Barbara (Roulette TV Shoot)
New excerpts from "Shimmer", an opera in-progress, composed and performed by Joan La Barbara, featuring video by Kurt Ralske, and the New York Premiere of "ROTHKO".
Shimmer is heat rising from the desert floor, shimmer is light sparkling on water, shimmer is wraiths passing along the back walls, shimmer is the aurora borealis, shimmer is in ghostly conversations. “Shimmer” (2007) is the latest scene from an opera in-progress, for multiple voices and layered sonic “atmospheres”. Here, I am exploring sounds inside the mind, impossible sounds, fragile sounds, transparent, ghostly sounds, shimmering voices and modular fragments. A series of inhales with no exhale, separated by sonic blackness, silences of varying lengths are shattered by a sudden burst of underwater wails, as the work moves from interior to exterior space and back again.
"ROTHKO was conceived after my first visit to The Rothko Chapel in Houston. I was so moved and overwhelmed by the majesty, the depth and complexity of Mark Rothko’s exquisite final paintings that I wanted to create a work in homage to those images. In 1985, I composed “A Rothko Study” for voice and chamber ensemble, premiered at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In 1986, I composed “ROTHKO” for multiple layers of vocal multiphonics and isolated, reinforced harmonics interwoven with bowed piano, and premiered the 8-channel work with live vocal overlay in the octagonal space of the Rothko Chapel, as part of the New Music America festival. Tonight’s performance is the New York premiere of a new mix combining elements of the original recordings with remixes from the version which appears on track 2 of my New World cd, “ShamanSong”. “ROTHKO” is both monochromatic and intricately infinite, as are the paintings which inspired it."
Joan La Barbara’s career as a composer/performer/sound artist has been devoted to exploring the human voice as a multi-faceted instrument, going far beyond traditional boundaries, creating works for multiple voices, chamber ensembles, music theater, orchestra and interactive technology. As an acknowledged pioneer in the field of contemporary classical music and Sound Art, she developed a unique vocabulary of experimental and extended vocal techniques, including multiphonics (the simultaneous sounding of two or more pitches), circular singing, ululation and glottal clicks that have become her "signature" sounds.
Using technology to research time and the atemporal, Kurt Ralske's video installations and performances are created exclusively with his own custom software. His work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Guggenheim Bilbao, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art. Kurt programmed and co-designed the 9-channel video installation that is permanently in the lobby of the MoMA in NYC. In 2003, his work received First Prize at the Transmediale International Media Art Festival in Berlin, as a member of the video ensemble 242.pilots. Kurt is the recipient of a 2007 Rockefeller Foundation Media Arts Fellowship. He is Visiting Professor of Digital Art at The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and is on the faculty of The School of Visual Arts, NYC, in the MFA Computer Art Department.
