Jack Straw is proud to announce the writers selected by 2011 Writers Program Curator Susan Rich from among the dozens of talented writers who applied. The 2011 Jack Straw Writers are Nassim Assefi, Donald Fels, Debra Jarvis, Robert Lamirande, Anne McDuffie, Larissa Min, Annette Spaulding-Convy, Harold Taw, Ann Teplick, Nora Wendl, Katharine Whitcomb, and Maritess Zurbano.

We are very excited to work with these writers and share their work with you over the coming year through public readings, our podcast series, and our Anthology.

photo by Robin Laananen

Jack Straw Productions is thrilled to announce our commission of Smokestack Arias, a song cycle for soprano, piano and pre-recorded electronic score created by composer Wayne Horvitz in collaboration with songwriter/librettist Robin Holcomb, with support from Meet The Composer's Commissioning Music/USA program. The work takes its name from the nickname for the city of Everett, Washington at the start of the last century, and examines the labor uprising and resultant deaths of six individuals in an incident known as The Everett Massacre.  

The complete song cycle will be performed by soprano soloist Maria Mannisto and pianist Cristina Valdes - both featured performers in Horvitz and Holcomb's 2008 chamber opera The Heartsong of Charging Elk.  Individual songs will express the points of view of a variety of female characters: mothers, daughters, wives and comrades of the slain protesters. The electronic score, as interludes, will evoke the voices of the departed.

Wayne Horvitz will compose the score for piano and soprano. Text will be written by Robin Holcomb. The electronic score will be created by Mr. Horvitz and will use original material in addition to manipulations of historical and environmental recordings. Both Ms. Holcomb and Ms. Mannisto will contribute vocally to the electronic component of the composition.

The narrative seeks to evoke the personal toll and emotional impact of this historic tragedy, rather than to express an overtly political or didactic viewpoint. This is not to disregard the gravity of the social issues, especially in light of the current dire economic straits that many working-class Americans find themselves in, but rather to examine similar personal issues through the lens of a seminal event in the history of the Pacific Northwest labor movement.  

Smokestack Arias is being commissioned through Meet The Composer's Commissioning Music/USA program, which is made possible by generous support from the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, the Ford Foundation, the Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Helen F. Whitaker Fund.

Raven Chronicles and Jack Straw Productions present

The Family Corvidae

Friday, February 4, 2011, 7 - 9pm

Free

Jack Straw Productions

4261 Roosevelt Way (corner of Roosevelt and 43rd)

Seattle, WA 98105

Editors and contributors read work from Raven's issue devoted to the divine and imaginative Corvidae Family.

Readings and Performances by Paul Hunter (M.C.), Christopher Jarmick & David D. Horowitz, J.W. Marshall, Georgia McDade, Minnie Collins, Susan Platt & Monique Franklin, Laura Snyder, Bill Yake, Kate Carroll de Gutes, Eric le Fatte, Lois Rosen, Felice Wyndham

"With other animals you can usually throw out 90 percent of the stories you hear about them as exaggerations. With ravens, it's the opposite. No matter how strange or amazing the story, chances are pretty good that at least some raven somewhere actually did that."

-Mark Pavelka, US Fish and Wildlife Service

STEVE SCRIBNER

The Nature (of) Sound in the
'StormSound' Cycle

Wed, February 9, 7:30pm

Jack Straw Productions

4261 Roosevelt Way NE, Seattle, 98105

Composer Steve Scribner will explore the use of field recordings and (non)random elements in his recent cycle of "StormSound" pieces. He will talk about how it seems neither possible nor desirable to actually create randomness in art; some of his influences; the philosophical / religious underpinnings of the "StormSound" pieces; and compositional techniques he has used in them: graphic scores and guided improvisation, phasing and "phase canons," "time stratification," and performance based on moment-to-moment decisions regarding aesthetics of individual sounds.

There are 21 pieces in the "official" cycle of StormSound pieces, for a total of about nine hours. Scribner will present this entire work in a concert at the Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, on Saturday, May 21st, 2011.

S(teven) Eric Scribner was born in Seattle. Some of his earliest pieces were performed by soloists and chamber ensembles while he was in college at Seattle Pacific University and the University of Washington. In the 1980's, he taught English in Japan; during this time his pieces "SoundScrolls I" (arranged for shakuhachi and piano) and "Strange Repeating Bird" received their premiers in the Fukushima Ongakudo concert hall, causing something of a stir among the audience. Living in California in the 1990's, he played with an "avant-folk" group called Dawn Treader and worked on three large-scale experimental music projects, "From the Oceans; From the Stars", "Music from Thousand Oaks" (pieces for folk instruments, piano, and electronics), and the continuation of the "SoundScrolls" pieces (some recorded at Mills College with Peter Valsamis, percussion, Tom Nunn, homemade instruments, and Ginny Landgraf, wind instruments). He returned to the Seattle area in 1999 and received his Masters Degree in education from Seattle Pacific University. Recent compositions have been mostly for the fourth large-scale project, the "StormSound" cycle.

Winter Audio Production Workshops

Jack Straw Audio Workshops are the perfect opportunity to jump start that recording project you've been thinking about, to refine your digital editing skills, or to get that first hands on introduction to the world of audio recording and editing.

Intro to ProTools: Wednesday - Friday, February 23 - 25, 6 - 10pm

Basic Studio Recording: Thursday - Friday, March 3 - 4, 6 - 10pm

HOW TO SIGN UP: A nonrefundable deposit of $25 is required to register and hold a place in each class. Students are encouraged to pay in full at time of registration. Registration for each class will close ONE WEEK before the class date. Please make sure you contact us to reserve your spot early on! Spaces are limited. To register call Jack Straw Productions at 206-634-0919 with your credit card to pay the deposit or full class fee. Students may also get a brochure form, and mail in a check for the deposit or class fee. For more information email workshops@jackstraw.org.