Now in its 22nd consecutive season, Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival 2020 will offer three concerts in the Thalia Theater in Symphony Space on April 13, 20, and 27, 2020. Highlighting the 100th Anniversary of women’s suffrage, the festival will present theatrical works by three women composers: Marisa Michelson, Dalit Warshaw and Victoria Bond. The Festival will collaborate with the Eric Salzman Award for New Music Theater Composition and trombonists from The Metropolitan Opera and The New York Philharmonic. These concerts will explore facets of contemporary music by living composers, all of whom will be present to discuss their works on stage with host and creator, Victoria Bond. The following is a brief outline:
4.13.20
Two Women by Two Women
Song of Song of Songs by Marisa Michelson
Cutting Edge Concerts, in partnership with Quog Music Theater’s first Eric Salzman Award for New Music Theater Composition, will present Song of Song of Songs, words and music by Marisa Michelson. Scored for twelve singers, bansuri flute, melodica, cello and percussion, the work defies category, encompassing live music video, oratorio, opera and ritual. It explores the relationship between the sensual and the sacred, the body and the spirit, through an exegesis of the Western world’s oldest erotic poem, Song of Songs. Performed by Marisa Michelson and Constellation Chor.
The Letters of Mademoiselle C. by Dalit Warshaw
A protégée of Auguste Rodin, Camille Claudel (1864 –1943) was among the very few to blaze new pathways for women sculptors and gain recognition, flouting the bourgeois ideals that had determined the proper course of a woman’s life. Claudel was termed a “Woman of Genius,” yet her fall from grace was a disturbing and tragic ending to a young, brilliant career too soon cut short, as she fell into disrepute and ultimately into what her family characterized as madness. In this cycle, Camille Claudel’s story is narrated through a series of five musical “letters,” each addressed to a different significant figure in the artist’s life. The text is significantly inspired from the words of Camille, the sculptor Auguste Rodin, and her brother, the poet and diplomat Paul Claudel.
4.20.20
The Art of the 21st Century Trombone
The Beginning of Spring by Harrison J. Collins
Performed by John Romero Principal Trombone, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra
Hanako Yamagata Greenberg, pianist
Sonata by John Stevens
Performed by Steve Norrell Bass trombone, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra
Cullan Bryant, pianist
Trombone Concerto by Kenneth Fuchs
Performed by George Curran, Bass trombone, New York Philharmonic
Hanako Yamagata Greenberg, pianist
Red Sky by Anthony Barfield
Performed by Colin Williams Associate Principal Trombone, NY Philharmonic
Hanako Yamagata Greenberg, pianist
The Voices of Air by Victoria Bond
Performed by JoDee Davis, Professor of Trombone
Univ. of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory
Hanako Yamagata Greenberg, pianist
4.27.20
Mrs. President the opera
In honor of the 100th anniversary of Women’s Suffrage, Cutting Edge Concerts will produce a concert performance of the opera, Mrs. President, about the first woman to run for President, by composer Victoria Bond, and librettist Hilary Bell. The opera highlights Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for President of the United States. A true revolutionary, she fought for women’s rights and ran for the country’s highest office in 1872, before women had been granted the right to vote. She was branded “Mrs. Satan” by the press because she posed a threat to society, and jailed on election night. In the final scene, Woodhull, in her prison cell, silenced but not defeated, looks ahead to a future generation of women who will realize her vision of equality.
The cast includes: Valerie Bernhardt (Victoria Woodhull); Scott Ramsay (Henry Ward Beecher); Michael Kelly (Col. James Blood); Katie Hannigan (Roxie); Keely Futterer (Isabella Beecher); David Charles Tay (Joseph Treat); Chorus: members of Dell’Arte Opera Ensemble. Pianist Marc Peloquin will accompany, Victoria Bond will conduct.
Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival 2019
Philip Glass, Paul Barnes and Victoria Bond at Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival.