All material found in the Press Releases section is provided by parties entirely independent of Musical America, which is not responsible for content.
Press Releases
International Contemporary Ensemble Premieres New Staging of Du Yun's 'A Cockroach’s Tarantella' and 'Zolle' at NYU Skirball
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PR Contact: Katy Salomon | Morahan Arts and Media
katy@morahanartsandmedia.com | 863.660.2214
International Contemporary Ensemble Performs Two Brand
New Stagings of Du Yun's A Cockroach’s Tarantella and Zolle
at NYU Skirball, April 29 & 30
Opening the Ensemble’s 20th Anniversary Season in 2022
Watch the LA Opera Digital Short "The Zolle Suite"
“At first glance, the one predictable thing about Du Yun is her unpredictability.
Dig deeper… you can sense the conjoined strands of curiosity and
compassion that run through everything she makes.” — The New Yorker
New York, NY (March 22, 2022) — In continuing to shift and disrupt the operatic field, Pulitzer Prize-winner Du Yun has created two new staged versions of A Cockroach's Tarantella and Zolle with director Roscha A. Säidow and in collaboration with the International Contemporary Ensemble and Satomi Matsuzaki. The two works will be presented jointly in an evening-length diptych at NYU Skirball on Friday, April 29, 2022 and Saturday, April 30, 2022 at 7:30pm. This version of the evening-length diptych is a reworking by Du Yun and Roscha A. Säidow of the Lucerne Theater production (October 2021) specifically for the Skirball stage.
Satomi Matsuzaki from Deerhoof, the prolific band that “conjures anxious garage funk, Tejano-infused noise rock, introspective dissonance, mercurial power pop, and just about everything in between” (Pitchfork), joins Du Yun as the lead character, The Wander Woman Ghost. They both give voice to a wandering dead woman through narration and singing. These two works navigate questions and emotions around home/homecoming, migration/movement, and transformation/transgression.
This program also kicks off the International Contemporary Ensemble’s 20th anniversary season, a homecoming. Zolle, originally written in 2005, is Du Yun’s first chamber opera and one of the first operas the Ensemble collaborated on in its formative years. The work, which centers around themes of belonging, migration, and identity, will also be the inspiration for SOUND IS AN OPENING, a series of community-engaged events curated by interdisciplinary artist and Ensemble Director of Individual Giving eddy kwon featuring the artists of Zolle, as well as new and longtime collaborators of the Ensemble with dynamic and varied connections to diaspora.
For 20 years, the International Contemporary Ensemble has been a home for experimental new music, the artists who make it, and the community that supports it. The Ensemble's vision of artistic homebuilding is clearly reflected in Du Yun's personal trajectory – having been a founding member of the Ensemble in 2001, winning awards and accolades such as the Pulitzer Prize, and most recently a leader on the Ensemble's board of directors.
In Zolle, a staged chamber opera, a dead woman wanders through the shadowy space on the border between memory and reality, tracing the lines of her identity through the land she once walked – an immigrant in death as in life. A music narrative in which the audience bears witness to a wandering spirit exploring and contemplating her own multitude of identities and remembrance of her past life. As she travels between worlds of life and afterlife, she cannot choose between the living and the dead, unable to let go of either. Filled with sorrow and peace, she finally lets go by turning into a part of the earth. A Cockroach’s Tarantella, for string quartet and narrator, reflects on corporeality, human desire, religion, and belonging as the essential quest and the existential dread that all sentient beings experience, cockroach or not.
The pieces complement each other in their exploration of the human soul and the seeking of answers on the topic of identity and heritage – A Cockroach’s Tarantella as the “life-before” and Zolle the “after-life.” Scored for a chamber ensemble, voice, and spoken word, with Du Yun as narrator and featuring Satomi Matsuzaki as singer, these works together probe humankind’s ubiquitous fascination with movement and alienation, amidst the hope of belonging.
Du Yun mentions that the piece serves as a reflection of her own experiences as an immigrant living in America: “this piece was scored for the female voice and a narration – two voices of the same character which both embody who she is. When I'm creating, it feels that the ideas and emotions are very heightened but then the words fail at that total expression. A character that has both narration and singing embodies what I think most immigrants are experiencing – ‘how can you manifest these complex emotional subtleties with both entities, with words and with music?’”
In 2021 LA Opera created a digital short of three chapters of Zolle entitled The Zolle Suite with the International Contemporary Ensemble and Du Yun. When recording this piece, Du Yun mentions how surprised she was to feel the same. “I was an international student at the time of writing, and I am an Asian American now. Revisiting and re-recording this story after a decade, it still rings true—the calling of the homeland and the pull of migration,” she says. “This piece is about belonging and also questioning about belonging. That was what propelled me to write this story and it really holds a very dear place in my heart.”
Program Information
Du Yun's A Cockroach’s Tarantella and Zolle
Friday, April 29, 2022 at 7:30pm
Saturday, April 30, 2022 at 7:30pm
NYU Skirball | 566 LaGuardia Pl | New York, NY 10012
Tickets: https://nyuskirball.org/
Du Yun – A Cockroach’s Tarantella (2010) for string quartet, electronics, and narrator
Du Yun, voice, sound design
Josh Modney, violin
Pauline Harris, violin
Hannah Levinson, viola
Mariel Roberts, cello
Kamna Gupta, conductor
Du Yun – Zolle (2005) chamber opera
Du Yun, The Wander Woman Ghost (Narrator/Voice)*
Satomi Matsuzaki, The Same Wander Woman Ghost (Voice/Narrator)*
eddy kwon, The Land-Watcher
Ziad Nehme, The Land-Watcher (Recorded Tenor)
Alice Teyssier, flute
Ryan Muncy, saxophone
Nathan Davis, percussion
Josh Modney, violin
Hannah Levinson, viola
Mariel Roberts, cello
Kamna Gupta, conductor
*The Narrator and the Female Voice are of the same character
Creative Team:
Du Yun, composer, text, sound design, narrator/voice
Satomi Matsuzaki, voice/narrator
Roscha A. Säidow, Director, Costume Designer, Video
eddy kwon, Assistant Director
Kamna Gupta, conductor
Nicholas Houfek, light designer
Randi Rivera, Rehearsal Stage Manager
Žilvinas Jonušas, Props Master
Ross Karre, production coordinator and video projection technician
About the Artists
Du Yun, born and raised in Shanghai, China, and currently based in New York City, works at the intersection of opera, orchestral, theatre, cabaret, musical, oral tradition, public performances, electronics, visual arts, and noise. Her body of work is championed by some of today’s finest performing groups and organizations around the world. Known for her “relentless originality and unflinching social conscience” (The New Yorker), Du Yun’s second opera, Angel’s Bone (libretto by Royce Vavrek), won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Music. She was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Classical Composition category for her work Air Glow. Her collaborative opera Sweet Land with Raven Chacon (for opera company The Industry) was the 2021 Best New Opera by the North America Critics Association. Four of her feature studio albums were named The New Yorker’s Notable Recordings of the Year, in 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021, respectively.
A community champion, Du Yun was a founding member of the International Contemporary Ensemble; served as the Artistic Director of MATA Festival (2014-2018); conceived the Pan Asia Sounding Festival (National Sawdust); and founded FutureTradition, a global initiative that illuminates the provenance lineages of folk art and uses these structures to build cross-regional collaborations from the ground up. Du Yun was named one of 38 Great Immigrants by the Carnegie Foundation (2018), “Artist of the Year” by the Beijing Music Festival (2019). In 2022, she was granted a Creative Capital Award for an AR inter-generational Kun-opera project. Asia Society Hong Kong has honored her for her continued contribution in the performing arts field. Other notable awards include Guggenheim, American Academy Berlin Prize, Fromm Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts. As an avid performer and bandleader (Ok Miss), her onstage persona has been described by The New York Times as “an indie pop diva with an avant-garde edge.” Du Yun is Professor of Composition at the Peabody Institute, and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Her concert music is published worldwide by G.Schirmer. https://channelduyun.com/
Satomi Matsuzaki joined the band Deerhoof as bassist and singer within a week of moving to the United States from Japan in May 1995, with no prior experience playing in a band, and went on tour as Deerhoof's singer only a week later. Deerhoof's style has been described as indie rock, noise pop, punk rock, and "experimental pop mired in a pure punk sense of adventure" (Portland Mercury). Deerhoof have taken leaps and bounds artistically and stylistically, experimenting with pop and punk in ways never imagined, ultimately proving that punk can fit into an artistic world. According to the Los Angeles Philharmonic, they made "some of the most difficult and unclassifiable noise of the mid-'90s before unexpectedly rising to international prominence as one of indie rock's most renowned and influential groups ... too 'pop' for 'noise,' and too 'noise' for 'pop.'" The band has been appreciated by and/or influential to other artists, notably David Bowie, Radiohead, Questlove, St. Vincent, Foo Fighters, Dirty Projectors, Tune-Yards, Stereolab, and Henry Rollins. Deerhoof has collaborated with many artists including Ensemble Dal Niente in premiering Marcos Balters’ seven-movement suite, meltDown Upshot (2016). Their songs are often covered by other artists (notably Phil Lesh, Los Campesinos!, Marco Benevento, David Bazan).
Roscha A. Säidow, born and raised in Berlin, is a multi-disciplined artist. After studying Theater Directing at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin and winning the Vontobel-Prize for her production Heroes (Palmetshofer) in 2011 in Hamburg, the artist has worked at State Theaters in Germany (e.g. Schauspiel Frankfurt, Theater Dortmund, Theater Mannheim, and Schauspiel Leipzig). With her profound specialization in modern puppet theatre and the interest in interdisciplinary approaches her projects are a kaleidoscope of forms. Säidow is founding member of the independent Puppet Theater Company Retrofuturisten, whose works were shown at national and international Festivals. Co-productions with the Goethe-Institute and foreign Artist Groups brought Säidow to Indonesia, Jordan and South-Africa.
While being a guest of the Playwrights Fellowship at Schauspiel Frankfurt from 2015 to 2016 her play “I would like to be as charming as Adriano Celentano” premiered. At the following Artist in Residence at the Magdeburg Puppet Theater from 2017 to 2019 Säidow researched about new forms in modern puppet theater. In 2019 the Opera “The True Story of King Kong” (composition: Jeffrey Ching, libretto: Roscha A. Säidow) was created as a Co-Production between the Magdeburg Puppet Theater and the Magdeburg Opera. Additional to her staging work Säidow writes and composes „Singspiele“, such as "M - A City hunts a murderer“ (premiered in 2016 and inspired by the cinematic masterpiece of Fritz Lang). This show was a guest at various national Theater Festivals and at the Berliner Ensemble. Besides theatre, Säidow works in the field of Sound Art and Video Production and is songwriter for different music projects. Roscha A. Säidow is a Guest Lecturer at the Academy of Dramatic Arts “Ernst Busch” in Berlin. https://www.roscha-saeidow.de/
eddy kwon (they/she) is a violinist/violist, dancer, and interdisciplinary performing artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Their performance work explores transformation & transgression, ritual practice as invitation & discovery, and the use of mythology to connect, obscure, and reveal. Her work as an improviser & composer-performer is inspired by Korean folk timbres & inflections, textures & movement from natural environments, and American experimentalism as shaped by the AACM. She is a United States Artists Ford Fellow, Hermitage Fellow, Van Lier Fellow at Roulette Intermedium, Johnson Fellow at Americans for the Arts, and Andrew W. Mellon Artist-in-Residence at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College. In addition to an evolving, interdisciplinary solo practice, she collaborates with artists of diverse disciplines, including The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Du Yun, Senga Nengudi, Degenerate Art Ensemble, Isabel Crespo Pardo, Lesley Mok, Lester St. Louis, and Tomeka Reid, and has performed in improvisational ensembles with Mary Halvorson, Nicole Mitchell, Moor Mother, Susan Alcorn, Carla Kihlstedt, and more. eddy currently serves as Director of Individual Giving at International Contemporary Ensemble, where she is also a guest curator. http://www.eddykwon.net/
Kamna Gupta is an American Prize-winning conductor experienced in operatic, orchestral, and choral repertoires. In 2022, she will join the roster of LA Opera as cover conductor for the West Coast premiere of In Our Daughter’s Eyes (Du Yun / McQuillen), a co-production with Beth Morrison Projects and Trinity Church Wall Street. She will also cover the premiere of the work at Prototype Festival. She will also serve as cover conductor for Trinity Church Wall Street’s production of Considering Matthew Shepard.
In 2021, Gupta served as associate conductor at the Seattle Opera workshop of Arkhipov (Knell / Fleischmann). She returned to The Glimmerglass Festival as a cover conductor for Il Trovatore, The Knock (Vrebalov / Brevoort), and a concert of musical theater selections. Additionally, she served as music director and conductor of the American Lyric Theater workshop of The Selfish Giant (Assad / Palmer) and for the piece’s recording under the auspices of Opera Saratoga. In 2020, Gupta made her Canadian debut with Tapestry Opera conducting a recording of Rocking Horse Winner (Williams / Chatterton), whose recording was recently featured on CBC Music’s Saturday Afternoon at the Opera. Gupta was also slated to return to The Glimmerglass Festival to conduct Così?, a modern adaptation of the beloved classic (canceled due to COVID-19). Company credits include the Royal Opera in Versailles, LA Opera, the Glimmerglass Festival, Beth Morrison Projects, Sarasota Opera, Opera Saratoga, American Lyric Theater, and Trinity Church Wall Street.
Equally at home in opera and with orchestras, Gupta has worked on new, standard, and early repertories with orchestras in Germany, Russia, and the Czech Republic. A special highlight was leading the Leipziger Barockorchester in an all-Bach program. Additional highlights include her work as an apprentice conductor with the New York Youth Symphony and as a Conducting Fellow at the Atlantic Music Festival.
Gupta’s passion for education has also led her to work with education departments at the New York Philharmonic and the Castleton Festival, where she helped develop special programming and outreach events for students of all ages. She is currently based in New York City, and in addition to conducting, is active as a pianist and harpsichordist. Gupta received her Master of Music in Orchestral Conducting from Arizona State University and her Bachelor of Arts in Music from Princeton University, where she graduated cum laude. https://www.kamnagupta.com/
Nicholas Houfek is a NYC based Lighting Designer working in Music, Dance, and Theater. Selected projects include: Claire Chase's Density Project (The Kitchen), International Contemporary Ensemble, Natalie Merchant, Maya Beiser, Ojai Music Festival, Silk Road Ensemble, Tyshawn Sorey’s Perle Noire directed by Peter Sellars, Anohni’s She Who Saw Beautiful Things at The Kitchen, Suzanne Farrin’s La Dolce Morte at the Metropolitan Museum of Art directed by Doug Fitch, George Lewis’ Soundlines featuring Steve Schick and directed by Jim Findlay, Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s In The Light of Air, Ash Fure’s The Force of Things, The 39 Steps (Olney Theatre Center). Mr. Houfek has designed for the Martha Graham Dance Company, Cedar Lake Contemporary Dance, and Ian Spencer Bell Dance. He is an ensemble member of the International Contemporary Ensemble and a graduate of Boston University. http://www.nicholashoufek.com
With a commitment to cultivating a more curious and engaged society through music, the International Contemporary Ensemble – as a commissioner and performer at the highest level – amplifies creators whose work propels and challenges how music is made and experienced. The Ensemble’s 35 members are featured as soloists, chamber musicians, commissioners, and collaborators with the foremost musical artists of our time. Works by emerging composers have anchored the Ensemble’s programming since its founding in 2001, and the group’s recordings and digital platforms highlight the many voices that weave music’s present.
Described as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), the Ensemble has become a leading force in new music throughout the last 20 years, having premiered over 1,000 works and having been a vehicle for the workshop and performance of thousands of works by student composers across the U.S. The Ensemble’s composer-collaborators—many who were unknown at the time of their first Ensemble collaboration—have fundamentally shaped its creative ethos and have continued to highly visible and influential careers, including MacArthur Fellow Tyshawn Sorey; long-time Ensemble collaborator, founding member, and 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winner Du Yun; and the Ensemble’s founder, 2012 MacArthur Fellow, and first-ever flutist to win Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Prize, Claire Chase.
A recipient of the American Music Center’s Trailblazer Award and the Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, the International Contemporary Ensemble was also named Musical America’s Ensemble of the Year in 2014. The group has served as artists-in-residence at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival (2008-2020), Ojai Music Festival (2015-17), and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2010-2015). In addition, the Ensemble has presented and performed at festivals in the U.S. such as Big Ears Festival and Opera Omaha’s ONE Festival, as well as abroad, including GMEM-Centre National de Création Musicale (CNCM) de Marseille, Vértice at Cultura UNAM, Warsaw Autumn, International Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt, and Cité de la Musique in Paris. Other performance stages have included the Park Avenue Armory, ice floes at Greenland’s Diskotek Sessions, Brooklyn warehouses, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and boats on the Amazon River.
Curricular activities include a partnership at The New School’s College of Performing Arts (CoPA), along with a summer intensive program, called Ensemble Evolution, where topics of equity, diversity, and inclusion build new bridges and pathways for the future of creative sound practices. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the Ensemble. Read more at www.iceorg.org and watch over 350 videos of live performances and documentaries at www.digitice.org.
NYU Skirball, located in the heart of Greenwich Village, is one of New York City’s major presenters of international work, and has been the premier venue for cultural and performing arts events in lower Manhattan since 2003. The 800-seat theater, led by Director Jay Wegman, provides a home for internationally renowned artists, innovators, and thinkers and presents ground-breaking events ranging from re-inventions of the classics to cutting-edge premieres, in genres ranging from dance, theater and performance arts to comedy, music and film. NYU Skirball’s unique position within New York University enables it to draw on the University’s intellectual riches and resources to enhance its programming with dialogues, public forums and conversations with artists, philosophers, scientists, Nobel Laureates, and journalists. Learn more at nyuskirball.org.
# # #
*Photo: Zhen Qin | Makeup: Nina Carelli | Art Direction: SpaTheory
FEATURED JOBS
RENT A PHOTO
