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October 14, 2005
A5 Concert
The "American Five"
Music and new media by faculty composers at American University.
8:00 pm
Recital Hall
Katzen Arts Center
American University
Excerpts from A Season In Hell (work-in-progress)
A Video Opera for Perilous Times in Post-Apocalyptic America
A Season in Hell chronicles America’s descent during the turbulent years: 2001 – 2008, triggered by 9/11 and exacerbated by the presidency of George W. Bush. The epic narrative is recounted by Randall M. Packer, Secretary-at-Large of the US Department of Art & Technology (US DAT), who formed the Department in 2001 with utopian idealism “to insure that the artist as visionary, as social revolutionary, has voice in the national dialogue.” A Season in Hell is an interpretation of reality where myths are born and truths are revealed – far beyond the suspension of disbelief.
Excerpt 1: State of the Union [The Fateful Embrace]
This work is set to Richard Wagner’s Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde, a tale of two lovers who suffer a fateful embrace with love and death. In George Bush’s 2004 State of the Union address, a mother whose son died in the Iraq War embraces an Iraqi woman who had just participated in the recent election. It is an equally fateful moment of love and death staged in the grand theater of American politics.
Excerpt 2: Orf Comes to Washington
Orf (from the legend of Orpheus) is a poet-troubador who resides in the shadowy depths of the Other World. Orf pays a visit to Washington, DC singing negro spirituals while moving through the iconic environment of the Nation’s Capital. His mission is to carry out a spectacular vigil to bear witness in extraordinary times of crisis.
Posted by Randall at October 14, 2005 08:39 PM
Comments
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Posted by: Allison Trump at January 19, 2006 09:40 PM