BAM announces 2010 Next Wave Festival (Stew, Trombone Shorty, Bang on a Can All-Stars and more)
BAM Next Wave Festival 2010 (the annual music/dance/theater/opera series to run September 21–Decemeber 19) will include work & performances by Laurie Anderson (doing the NY premiere of her work Delusion), a song cycle from Stew and Heidi Rodewald (of Passing Strange fame), music by NOLA’s Trombone Shorty, Mikel Rouse‘s multimedia-song project Gravity Radio, and A House in Bali, an opera by Bang on a Can All-Star’s Evan Ziporyn featuring Balinese Gamelan Salukat and BoaC All-Stars.
Next Wave Festival subscription tickets for Friends of BAM (as well as subscribers to both the 2010 Spring Season and 2009 Next Wave Festival) are on sale Jun 7; subscription tickets for the general public are on sale Jun 14. Single tickets for Delusion and Vollmond are on sale Aug 30 (Aug 23 for Friends of BAM).
The 2009 Next Wave included musical works from DJ Spooky, So Percussion and The Dessner Brother and Deal sisters.
More info on the above-mentioned shows is below…
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Delusion NY Premiere
By Laurie Anderson
BAM Harvey Theater (651 Fulton St)
Sep 21-25, Sep 28.30, Oct 1 & 2 at 7:30pm
Sep 26 & Oct 3 at 3pm
Tickets: $20, 35, 45, 60
Pioneering performance artist Laurie Anderson opens the 2010 BAM Next Wave Festival with
Delusion, a far-reaching work exploring memory and identity. Delusion received its world premiere at
the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, and now makes its anticipated New York premiere at BAM.
In Delusion, deeply affecting music redolent of Tibetan temple horns and Arabic strings is performed
by Anderson on electronically enhanced violin with a supporting virtuoso ensemble. Delusionfs
structure imitates the meandering nature of onefs personal thoughts, exploring themes from politics to
personal longings, fusing the internal and external worlds into a mystical whole. The Financial Times
said g[Anderson] works her magic, and the piece, with its contradictions, shafts of insight and splinters
of wit lingers with you, long after the event, like a powerful dream.h
Laurie Anderson is a leading contemporary performance artist. Known primarily for her multimedia
presentations, she has cast herself in roles as varied as visual artist, composer, poet, photographer,
filmmaker, electronics whiz, vocalist, and instrumentalist. Anderson has toured the United States and
internationally with her shows which range from simple spoken word performances to elaborate
multimedia events. Major works include United States: Parts I-IV (1983, BAM), Empty Places (1989
Next Wave Festival), The Nerve Bible (1995), and Songs and Stories from Moby Dick (1999 Next
Wave Festival).a multimedia stage performance based on the novel by Herman Melville. In the fall of
2001, Anderson toured the US and Europe with a three-person band, performing music from her
album Life on a String. She has also presented many solo works, including Happiness, which
premiered in 2001 and toured internationally through the spring of 2003. In 2002, Anderson was
appointed the first artist-in-residence of NASA out of which she developed her solo performance The
End of the Moon (2005 Spring Season). Her score for Trisha Brownfs acclaimed piece O z.o.ony/O
composite (2009 Next Wave Festival) premiered at the Opera Garnier in Paris in December 2004.
Anderson was also part of the team that created the opening ceremony for the 2004 Olympic Games
in Athens. Homeland, Anderson’s new album for Nonesuch Records, will be released on June 22.
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A House in Bali NY Premiere
Bang on a Can All-Stars & Gamelan Salukat
Music by Evan Ziporyn
Libretto by Paul Schick (based on the memoir of Colin McPhee)
Directed by Jay Scheib
Presented in association with Asia Society
Choreography by Kadek Dewi Aryani and I Nyoman Catra
Set design by Sara Brown
Costume design by Oana Botez-Ban
Lighting design by Peter Ksander
Sound design by Andrew Cotton
Video design by Jay Scheib and AKA
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House (30 Lafayette Ave)
Oct 14.16 at 7:30pm
Tickets: $20, 40, 60
Artist Talk with Jay Scheib & Evan Ziporyn
Oct 15, post-show (free for same-day ticket holders)
Evan Ziporynfs dynamic new opera A House in Bali portrays one manfs journey through South Asia
and the spiritual awakenings that result. Based on the renowned memoir by composer Colin McPhee,
A House in Bali traces the roots of the West’s century-long infatuation with Bali through the true story
of McPhee and his cohorts, anthropologist Margaret Mead and artist Walter Spies, during their 1930s
sojourn there.
This visually stunning multimedia spectacle brings together the 16-piece Balinese Gamelan Salukat
and New York’s iconoclastic electric chamber ensemble Bang on a Can All-Stars. The opera also
features Balinese choreography by Kadek Dewi Aryani and vocals by leading operatic and traditional
Balinese singers including Peter Tantsits, Desak Made Suarti Laksmi, I Nyoman Catra, Timur
Bekbosunov, and Anne Harley. Centuries-old Balinese art forms blend seamlessly with live projection,
pushing the boundaries of theatrical innovation. The San Francisco Chronicle heralded the piece as
gan ingenious and often beautiful fusion of contemporary classical strains and Balinese gamelan. AHouse in Bali premiered at Puri Saraswati in Ubud, Bali in June 2009 and makes its anticipated New
York premiere at BAM.
Composer and clarinetist Evan Ziporyn is a member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars (Musical
Americafs 2005 Ensemble of the Year), with whom he has toured the globe since 1992. He redefined
the clarinet with his 2001 solo CD, This is Not a Clarinet, which made top 10 lists across America. He
recorded the definitive version of Steve Reichfs solo clarinet work New York Counterpoint for
Nonesuch and, as a member of the Steve Reich Ensemble, the Grammy Award-winning Music for 18
Musicians. He has recorded with Paul Simon, Matthew Shipp, and Ethel, and he is the founder and
artistic director of Bostonfs Gamelan Galak Tika, a group dedicated to new music for Balinese
gamelan, which he has studied for almost 30 years. His music has been commissioned and performed
by Kronos Quartet, Wu Man, American Composers Orchestra, American Repertory Theater, Maya
Beiser, S. Percussion, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, with whom he recorded his 2006
orchestral CD, Frog’s Eye. Ziporyn has collaborated with some of the worlds most creative and vital
musicians, including Brian Eno, Ornette Coleman, Thurston Moore, Meredith Monk, Iva Bittova, Philip
Glass, Terry Riley, Don Byron, Louis Andriessen, Cecil Taylor, Henry Threadgill, Wu Man, Wayan
Wija, and Kyaw Kyaw Naing. Ziporyn is currently the Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
–
Stew & The Negro Problem Brooklyn Omnibus World Premiere
Composed by Stew and Heidi Rodewald
BAM Harvey Theater (651 Fulton St)
Oct 20.23 at 7:30pm
Tickets: $25, 45, 65
Tony Award-winning composer/performer Stew and Obie Award-winning composer/perfomer Heidi
Rodewald.along with their acclaimed band The Negro Problem.invite us to get on board their
Brooklyn Omnibus, a song-cycle commissioned by BAM for the Next Wave Festival. This Brooklynthemed
work, presented in its world premiere engagement, is an irreverent, lyrical, and musical
exploration of life in Kings County.
Acclaimed for the award-winning musical Passing Strange (Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical,
Obie awards for Best New Theater Piece and Best Ensemble, Drama Desk Award for Outstanding
Lyrics), which was filmed by Spike Lee and debuted in theaters and on PBSf Great Performances
early this year, Stew has been a renowned cult-composer and performer since the early 90s as the
leader of bands The Negro Problem and Stew. Recordings with The Negro Problem include Post
Minstrel Syndrome (1997), Joys and Concerns (1999), Welcome Black (2002), and Blackboot (2003).
As Stew, he recorded Guest Host (2000).named Album of the Year by Entertainment Weekly.
Sweetboot (2001), The Naked Dutch Paintercand other songs (2002).also Entertainment Weekly
Album of the Year.and Something Deeper Than These Changes (2003). He composed gGary Come
Homeh for the popular childrenfs television program SpongeBob SquarePants. Stew and Heidi
Rodewaldfs most recent work, Making It, was presented at St. Annfs Warehouse in Brooklyn earlier
this year. Stew and Heidi Rodewald performed previously at BAM in 2001 at BAMcafe Live.
Obie Award winner Heidi Rodewald co-wrote the musical Passing Strange, nominated for seven Tony
Awards and winner of the Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Musical and the 2008 Obie Award for
Best New American Theater Piece. Ms. Rodewald has worked for over ten years performing,
producing, arranging, and composing for both The Negro Problem and Stew. She composed music for
Karen Kandel’s Portraits: Night and Day (2004) and co-wrote the screenplay We Can See Today for
the Sundance Screenwriters and Directors Labs (2005). She also wrote and performed with the
seminal female punk band Wednesday Week.
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Red Hot + New Orleans World Premiere
Musical director Trombone Shorty
Produced by BAM & Paul Heck/Red Hot Organization
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House (30 Lafayette Ave)
Dec 3 & 4 at 8pm
Tickets: $25, 45, 55, 65
The Red Hot series returns to the Next Wave Festival with a much-anticipated tribute to the culture of
the Big Easy in Red Hot + New Orleans. Rising young star Troy Trombone Shorty Andrews (riding
high on raves for his major label debut CD Backatown in addition to his recurring role in the new HBO
series Treme) curates a thrilling group of both established and emerging New Orleans musicians,
celebrating the indomitable and joyous spirit of the city.
The evening will explore the different musical traditions of the Crescent City.soul, jazz, R&B, funk,
and bounce hip-hop rhythms. Red Hot + New Orleans is BAMfs third programmatic partnership (Red
Hot + Riot, 2006 Next Wave Festival; Red Hot + Rio 2, 2008 Next Wave Festival) with the Red Hot
organization, the premier music industry nonprofit dedicated to funding AIDS research and awareness.
This program is presented in conjunction with Worlds AIDS Day (Dec 1). Part of the proceeds will
benefit New Orleans NO/AIDS Task Force.
Troy Trombone Shorty Andrews is a trombone and trumpet player currently rocketing to stardom. A
native of New Orleans’ culturally rich Treme neighborhood, Trombone Shorty has performed with
Norah Jones, Diana Krall, Juvenile, and Lenny Kravitz, among many others. He also performed with
U2 and Green Day during the New Orleans Superdomefs post-Katrina re-opening during Monday
Night Football.
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Gravity Radio NY Premiere
Conceived, written, and directed by Mikel Rouse
Set design by Jeffery Sugg
Sound design by Christopher Ericson
Musical direction by Matthew Gandolfo
BAM Harvey Theater (651 Fulton St)
Dec 7, 9.11 at 7:30pm
Tickets: $25, 35, 45
Artist Talk with Mikel Rouse
Dec 9, post-show (free for same-day ticket holders)
Cited as a composer many believe to be the best of his generation (The New York Times), Mikel
Rouse was last at BAM with the third installment of his opera trilogy, The End Of Cinematics (2006
Next Wave Festival). Composer/performer Rouse returns this season with the song cycle Gravity
Radio. Drawing his inspiration from physicist Raymond Chiaofs work with superconductors and gravity
waves that exist only in conjecture, Rouse intertwines music (for string quartet, guitar, and voices) and
film with ethereal shortwave static and reports from the AP News Wire. Triggered by the pulse of the
live music, the film represents a kaleidoscope of earthbound images. The AP News Wire reports and
the written commentary, which highlights the connections between the song lyrics and the reports, are
customized for each performance, taken from that dayfs local and national news.
Mikel Rousefs musical and theatrical repertoire has its roots in the high art-meets-popular culture,
mix-and-match aesthetic of the early 80s downtown Manhattan music and art scene. But music is just
a part of what he does.his pieces also build a hypnotic effect through their non-narrative approach
and the use of surreal film images. The Los Angeles Times notes, gIndeed, what makes Rousefs music
so fascinating is that it completely merges speech and song into a rich overlay of textures. The songs
have a lush pop music texture (some have noticed a seeming Rouse influence on Beck). The melodies
are immediate but complexly structured like poetry; his beautiful lyrics are highly musical in tone and
rhythm.h His works.ranging from recordings with his early contemporary chamber ensemble Mikel
Rouse Broken Consort, to his operatic trilogy (Failing Kansas, Dennis Cleveland, and The End Of
Cinematics), to a commission from the Merce Cunningham Dance Company scored for multiple iPods
set to gshuffleh.have been performed throughout the United States, Europe, and the Pacific Rim, and
at major festivals around the world.
Commissioned by BAM for the 2010 Next Wave Festival
General Information
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, BAM Rose Cinemas, and BAMcafe are located in the Peter Jay Sharp
building at 30 Lafayette Avenue (between St Felix Street and Ashland Place) in the Fort Greene neighborhood of
Brooklyn. BAM Harvey Theater is located two blocks from the main building at 651 Fulton Street (between
Ashland and Rockwell Places). Both locations house Shakespeare & Co. at BAM kiosks. BAM Rose Cinemas is
Brooklynfs only movie house dedicated to first-run independent and foreign film and repertory programming.
BAMcafe, operated by Great Performances, is open for dining prior to BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
evening and matinee performances. BAMcafe also features an eclectic mix of spoken word and live music for
BAMcafe Live on Friday and Saturday nights with a special BAMcafe Live menu available starting at 8pm.
Subway: 2, 3, 4, 5, Q, B to Atlantic Avenue;
D, M, N, R to Pacific Street; G to Fulton Street; C to Lafayette Avenue
Train: Long Island Railroad to Flatbush Avenue
Bus: B25, B26, B41, B45, B52, B63, B67 all stop within three blocks of BAM
Car: Commercial parking lots are located adjacent to BAM
For ticket and BAMbus information, call BAM Ticket Services at 718.636.4100, or visit BAM.org.
