InfiniteBody: Dancemakers Meet The Composer

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Dancemakers Meet The Composer

Meet The Composer announces the collaborations awarded for the 2008 COMMISSIONING MUSIC/USA program. They are a diverse group of 15 composers and 17 choreographers, theater artists, filmmakers, and visual artists. This year, MTC awards $180,000 to 21 organizations to commission 15 new works. Composers at the leading edge of contemporary classical, jazz, and theater music will join with a wide variety of artists to combine music with dance, theater, film, and puppetry. (For a complete lists of artists and organizations, see below.)

Meet The Composer president Ed Harsh says of this year’s selections, “We are thrilled by the creative energy that MTC is able to unleash from this excitingly varied group of artistic collaborations. Audiences across the country are going to find these new works fresh and engaging.”

Some highlights from the 2008 Commissioning Music/USA projects:

· Jazz pianist and composer Jason Moran and choreographer Alonzo King will create a new ballet for King’s LINES Ballet to premiere at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in October 2009.

· Broadway composer Michael John LaChiusa and writer Sybille Pearson will create a new musical theater piece Giant, based on the novel by Edna Ferber about a Texas ranch-farming family and the sacrifices demanded by life in the ever-changing American landscape.

· Composer and trumpeter Dave Douglas will partner with experimental filmmaker Bill Morrison for The History of Gadgetry, a music and film exploration of how technology and invention influence our lives and revolutionize the way we see the world. The project will incorporate film with acoustic as well as electronic instrumentation.

· Composer Nico Muhly and choreographer Stephen Petronio will develop an evening-length dance piece, I Drink the Air Before Me, exploring the power and drama of weather. The work will feature Petronio’s New York dance company and the Young People’s Chorus of New York.

· Indian classical music master Dr. L. Subramaniam and choreographer Ranee Ramaswamy will create Sthree (Women), a contemporary interpretation of Cilappatikaram, the national epic of the Tamil people of southeastern India.

· Composer David Van Tieghem and choreographer Doug Varone will create a new repertory dance piece, Broken Visual Novel, based on the motif of a single lamp hanging over the stage and the different scenes that can be played out beneath it.

· Composer Steve Mackey, actor/singer Rinde Eckert, and the new music ensemble eighth blackbird will collaborate to create Slide, a multidisciplinary work about human perception of images and the seduction and manipulation of the American psyche through imagery.

· Composers Cornelius Boots and Nils Frykdahl will work with visual artist/designer Claire Mack on The American Faust, a multidisciplinary retelling of the Faust legend staged at the Oakland Opera. The piece will use puppetry, set design, and rock artists to create an innovative multi-roomed stage in which the audience will literally follow Faust on his journey to redemption.

Full list of COMMISSIONING MUSIC/USA 2008 Awards

Composer/Collaborators: Lead Commissioner:

Jason Moran, Alonzo King: Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet

Michael Friedman, Steven Cosson: The Civilians

David Van Tieghem, Doug Varone: DOVA, Inc.

Evan Flory-Barnes, Dufon Smith: Earshot Jazz Society

Sven Abow, Helanius J. Wilkins: Edgeworks Dance Theater

Steve Mackey, Rinde Eckert: eighth blackbird

Dan Moses Schreier, Dan Hurlin: Mapp International Productions

Du Yun, Ryan Kelly, Brennan Gerard: Moving Theater

Cornelius Boots, Nils Frykdahl, Claire Mack: Oakland Opera

Dr. L. Subramaniam, Ranee Ramaswamy: Ragamala Music and Dance Theater

Pete Drungle, Sarah Michelson: Sarah Michelson

Michael John LaChiusa, Sybille Pearson: Signature Theatre

Dave Douglas, Bill Morrison: Stanford Lively Arts

Nico Muhly, Stephen Petronio: Stephen Petronio Dance Company

Hahn Rowe, John Jasperse: Thin Man Dance

For two decades, Meet The Composer’s commissioning programs have facilitated the creation and multiple performances of over 1,300 works by many of America’s most exciting contemporary composers. Examples of celebrated works that MTC has commissioned include: John Adams’s opera The Death of Klinghoffer and Andre Previn’s opera A Streetcar Named Desire; orchestral works such as John Corigliano’s Symphony No. 1, Philip Glass’s Concerto Fantasy, and William Bolcolm’s Symphony No. 6; multimedia pieces such as Meredith Monk’s Mercy and Paul Dresher’s Sound Stage; dance collaborations such as Lou Harrison’s Rhymes with Silver (Mark Morris Dance Group) and Zakir Hussain’s Flammable Contents; and ensemble works such as Tan Dun’s Concerto for Six Players, John Harbison’s Flashes and Illuminations, and Julia Wolfe’s Early That Summer.

ABOUT COMMISSIONING MUSIC/USA

COMMISSIONING MUSIC/USA is a landmark commissioning program developed by Meet The Composer in response to a critical need on the part of the music community. COMMISSIONING MUSIC/USA provides national support for the commissioning and multiple performances of new works representing all styles of music. The program provides support for emerging and established composers, promotes wider knowledge and appreciation of contemporary works, and encourages organizations to work together to build the repertoire for new music. Commissioning Music/USA is made possible by generous support from the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Francis Goelet Trust, the Helen F. Whitaker Fund, Target, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

The submission deadline and guidelines for the 2009 round of COMMISSIONING MUSIC/USA will be posted on MTC’s website in the fall of 2008: www.meetthecomposer.org. For further information, contact MTC’s Program Department at (212) 645-6949.

ABOUT MEET THE COMPOSER

Meet The Composer is a national organization founded in 1974 that has revolutionized the environment for composers in this country. Its mission is to increase opportunities for composers of every style of music by fostering the creation, performance, dissemination, and appreciation of their work. In so doing, Meet The Composer has radically expanded the repertoire of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, creating a legacy for the music of our time—over 1,300 new works have been added since MTC's first commissioning program was launched in 1988. Meet The Composer's core programs include Commissioning Music/USA; JP Morgan Chase Regrant Program for Small Ensembles; Global Connections; Music Alive; New Music, New Donors; and MetLife Creative Connections (formerly the Meet The Composer Fund). The impact of these programs is felt in all 50 states and involves approximately 300 composers annually, representing the full spectrum of contemporary American culture and such idioms as classical, opera, jazz, folk, ethnic, electronic, and more. Meet The Composer is currently engaged in a number of special projects designed to further its vision—that composers should become an integral part of the cultural life and creative output of their communities, and that their music find broad, new audiences and benefit communities across the country.