Judith Berkson Chamber Opera World Premiere at Roulette

“The Vienna Rite”

A Chamber Opera by Judith Berkson

featuring Yarn/Wire and Brian Chase (Yeah Yeah Yeahs)

Friday, November 2, 2012 @ 8:00 PM

Saturday, November 3, 2012 @ 8:00 PM

http://dev.roulette.org/assets/Berkson.jpg

What: Judith Berkson’s “The Vienna Rite”
Where:Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
When: November 2 & 3 @ 8pm
Cost/Info: $15/10 members/students/seniors, (917) 267-0363

A composer, singer, pianist, and accordionist, Judith Berkson’s performances reflect a diversity of interests from chamber music to experimental bands, Schubert lieder and Cantorial music. Join us for the two night world premiere of Berkson's "The Vienna Rite" featuring chamber ensemble Yarn/Wire, percussionist Brian Chase (Yeah Yeah Yeah’s), pianist Chi Chi Glass, and a seven person vocal ensemble. "The Vienna Rite" is a chamber opera about Viennese cantor Salomon Sulzer, whose life spanned most of the 19th century to include a friendship with Franz Schubert, an arrest during the revolution of 1848, being knighted by the emperor, and spreading a liturgical style influenced by the music of his city. The opera will explore these events drawing on influences from Viennese opera, contemporary music and devotional singing of cantors, and will feature a vocal ensemble, percussion, harmoniums and organ.

http://roulette.org/events/judith-berkson/
http://roulette.org/events/judith-berkson-2/

The piece is written for 3 drummers 3 organists and 7 singers and features the chamber ensemble Yarn/Wire along with guests Brian Chase (Yeah Yeah Yeah’s) and Chi Chi Glass (Fulbright piano scholar). Ian Greenlaw plays Salomon Sulzer along with an ensemble that includes Judith Berkson (Kronos Quartet, City Opera Vox Festival), Bo Chang (Talea Ensemble, Argento Ensemble), Allyssa Lamb (Las Rubias del Norte),Lana Cencic (Flip Phillip) Gavriel Savit (Voca People) and Aram Tchobanian (New York Metro Vocal Arts Ensemble).

Support for this project was provided by the Six Points Fellowship, a Jerome Commission, the Foundation for Jewish Culture and made possible with major funding from the UJA Federation of New York.

Judith Berkson
Composer, mezzo-soprano and pianist Judith Berkson has performed at The Picasso Museum Malaga, Philadelphia’s Thirdbird Seen & Heard Festival, Darmstadt New Music Festival, City Opera Vox Festival, Roulette and San Francisco’s Freight and Salvage Theater. She has recently been collaborating with Kronos Quartet on a project of Schubert arrangements for string quartet, wurlitzer keyboard and voice, a project which premiered at Le Poisson Rouge in New York in 2010. In addition she has premiered pieces by Aleksandra Vrebalov, Ohad Talmor, Chaya Czernowin and Joe Maneri and has performed at the BrucknerTage, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Kaufhaus Joske Gallery in Leipzig and The American Festival of Microtonal Music. “Oylam”, a record of her solo pieces released on ECM in 2010 was called “standards and Schubert and liturgical music, swing and chilly silences, a beautiful Satie-like piece in two different versions. I can’t get enough of it” by the New York Times. “More remarkable than the range of genres is Ms. Berkson’s mastery of them and her ability to weave them into a seamless program” wrote the Wall Street Journal. Judith is a 2011 Six Points Fellowship recipient and received a Jerome Commission in 2012.

Yarn/Wire
Since its founding in 2005, Yarn/Wire has supported both emerging and established living composers through commissions and dedicated performances of their work in order to foster dialogue surrounding new music and its place in contemporary society. The ensemble’s commitment to innovative programming highlights the contributions of new composers while retaining an historical perspective, and the quartet has already added close to 40 new works to the repertoire by leading young American composers including Alex Mincek, Tristan Perich, Aaron Einbond, David Bithell, and Kate Soper. Many of these commissioned pieces appear on Yarn/Wire’s debut album, Tone Builders, which was released by the NYC-based label Carrier Records in October 2010 following a 10-day recording residency at EMPAC (Troy, NY). This drive to work with emerging artists forms the centerpiece of Yarn/Wire’s artistic vision, and these collaborations are among its most rewarding experiences. Embracing changes in the technological and musical communities, Yarn/Wire strives to be a force that shapes the present and future of groundbreaking contemporary music through high-caliber performances and educational activities.

The members of Yarn/Wire are Laura Barger and Ning Yu, pianists; Ian Antonio and Russell Greenberg, percussionists. They have performed internationally at the Lucerne Festival, the Banff Centre for the Arts, Yellow Barn Chamber Music Festival, Tanglewood Music Center, Centre Acanthes, Klangspuren, and Darmstadt festivals.

Ian Greenlaw
American baritone IAN GREENLAW’s prodigious gifts have brought him to center stage of opera companies and orchestras from coast to coast. The Chicago Sun-Times characterized Ian Greenlaw as “possessing a voice both strong and sweet, and matinée idol good looks…”, and the Washington Post noted that he has “elegant stage presence, a subtle sense of humor and a splendid voice.”

Greenlaw was most recently seen as Mercutio in Roméo et Juliette with Atlanta Opera, Grandfather Clock/Cat in L’enfant et les sortilèges with the New York Philharmonic, and as the soloist in Bartók’s Cantata Profana with the St. Louis Symphony. Additional performances include the title role in Sam Helfrich’s production of Il barbiere di Siviglia with Kentucky Opera and Peter in Hansel and Gretel at Opera Theatre of St. Louis in performances conducted by Stephen Lord. He also performed excerpts from Die Zauberflöte in an all-Mozart program that served as a prelude to the Opera Theatre of St. Louis’ 2006 season. Recent and future performances include the role of the protagonist in Lorin Maazel’s opera, 1984, at the Palau des Arts in Valencia, Spain, and appearances with both the Los Angeles Philharmonic and New York Philharmonic as a soloist in Britten’s War Requiem. Greenlaw will also reprise the role of Winston in 1984 for his La Scala debut.

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