Chicaco Opera Vanguard Commemorates World AIDS Day 2009 with the Chicago AIDS Quilt Songbook 2009

By -

In recognition of World AIDS Day, Chicago Opera Vanguard will present the World Premiere of The Chicago AIDS Quilt Songbook - a one-night only benefit concert by various Chicago musical artists artistically responding to the HIV/AIDS crisis. Monday, December 1, 2009. The concert will be held at Center on Halsted in the Hoover -Leppen Theatre located at, 3656 N. Halsted St. in Chicago . All proceeds will benefit the Center’s programs.

The AIDS Quilt Songbook was started on World AIDS Day 1992 in New York by the late baritone William Parker who passed away in 1993 of AIDS-related illness. For this concert, Parker invited various composers to add a "song panel" to a musical quilt of remembrance commemorating those infected or affected by HIV/AIDS.

Following this tradition, a new songbook, The Chicago AIDS Quilt Songbook, created by Chicago Opera Vanguard’s Artistic Director Eric Reda has also commissioned works from a wide variety of Chicago-based and associated artists. The concert will include classical, pop, traditional, experimental, musical theater and cabaret style music. “I am so excited to help facilitate the revival of this powerful tradition,” said Chicago Opera Vanguard Artistic Director Eric Reda. “This is an amazing opportunity for Chicago ’s rich and active musical community, both composers and performers, to share their voices in remembering those infected or affected by HIV/AIDS.”

The composers include “Adding Machine” composer Josh Schmidt, CUBE Ensemble members Patricia Morehead & Lawrence Axelrod, DePaul University professor Robert Steel, Accessible Contemporary Music Artistic Director Seth Boustead, cabaret artist’s George Howe and Diana Lawrence, Anomie Ensemble Artistic Director Evan Kuchar, jazz saxophonist Amos Gillespie, pianist Myron Silberstein, Randall West, and Chicago Opera Vanguard Artistic Director Eric Reda.

This one-night only benefit concert featuring songs by Chicago musical artists responding to the HIV/AIDS crisis will be presented on World AIDS Day, December 1, 2009.

A pre-concert reception will begin at 6:30pm. $40 VIP Tickets feature premiere seating and two complimentary drink tickets. $20, General Admission tickets are also available. Purchase tickets online at www.centeronhalsted.org or at-the-door.

Chicago's Center on Halsted is the Midwest ’s largest community center for LGBT persons. As a resource and gathering place for youth and adults in a safe, inviting atmosphere, the Center offers comprehensive support networks and programming to meet the cultural, emotional, social, educational and recreational needs of all LGBT and non-LGBT persons.

Employing the daring aesthetic of an off-Loop theater, Chicago Opera Vanguard has quickly emerged as the Mid-West’s foremost home for engaging and challenging theatre-with-music. This season, Chicago Opera Vanguard will present a staging of Schubert’s WINTERREISE and the U.S. Premiere of Per Nørgård’s anti war “operatorio” NUIT des HOMMES.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Role of Music in Opera

By -
There are numerous books on the topic, and every composer, librettist, director, singer and audience member has their opinion as to what role the music should play in an opera. In a play without music, the words ought to support the meaning behind a character's actions. However, in the case of action movies, often times the action is what tells the story and there aren't words, just images to forward the plot. We might hear music to accompany action, build tension, but the action tells the story. Musicals tend to speak until the emotion of the moment just "has" to break out in song - unless it's something like "Mama Mia" where the dialog is the rails we travel on between songs; the songs themselves, written before the concept of the musical, are the focus of the production, while the story is secondary. Operas are a different beast. The music provides emotion to the words spoken, but it also plays the role of ambience when there is only action. In ...
Read more

Episode 210b: Joyeuse le départ

By -
Image
Podcast:  Play in new window  |  Download Subscribe:  Apple Podcasts  |  Android  |  Google Play  |  Stitcher  |  TuneIn  |  RSS Provost Cunningham has Transmigrated, but to where! What is Dr Sage going to do with his body? And how can she bring home her friends, Abigail and Erasmus, without also bring home Cunningham? What are they going to say when they find the “skeleton” she’s hiding in her closet? Cast: Eddie Louise Clark  as Dr Sage Chip Clark  as Professor Savant Justin Bremer  as the Narrator Emily Riley Piatt  as Abigail Entwhistle, Calypso & Dean Stewart Written by  Eddie Louise Theme music by  Unwoman Sound Design by  Chip Michael
Read more

Teaching Composition – What are we trying to achieve

By -
In the process of learning composition I have spent time with a number of instructors who have encouraged me to write twelve-tone, pitch-class, electro-acoustic and other forms of experimental techniques. No matter how much I might understand and appreciate the work of other composers in the genres, these are not forms of music I resonate with. They are simply not forms of music I listen to and I struggle with the idea of writing them. However, in a Master Class by Libby Larsen she made the comment, “Learn them all, because all forms of music have something to offer.” This I very much agree. There are elements of each of the above mentioned forms (and others) that I do resonate with. Berg’s Violin Concerto is a beautiful twelve-tone work, although it is possible to look at numerous sections of the music with a “tonal” analysis. Another composer friend, Gary Bachlund commented that using these techniques can narrow the choices for how to compose a piece of work. If you look at ...
Read more