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Follow on Google News | SYMPHO Presents Two New Concert Experiences in NYCSYMPHO PRESENTS TWO NEW CONCERT EXPERIENCES: ASCENDING DARKNESS: SOUNDTRACK TO A DREAM AND KAPOW!
SYMPHO is an orchestra that thrives on engaging audiences by placing classical music in new contexts. Its concerts range from commissioned evening-length compositions in unusual venues to thought-provoking, multisensory performances of pre-existing works from the existing classical canon. ASCENDING DARKNESS: SOUNDTRACK TO A DREAM What happens in a concert when the lights go out? What does the audience hear when it can’t see? What becomes of the concert experience when stripped of visual stimulation and concomitant distractions? Sympho and its Artistic Director, Paul Haas, present “Ascending Darkness,” a concert experience in the dark, in New York City’s famed Church of the Ascension. “Ascending Darkness” invites its listeners to immerse themselves in a dream. Upon entering the sanctuary, audience members are swept into a half-lighted, quietly conscious state. The opening notes of Rameau’s “Scène Funèbre” from Castor et Pollux then pull the audience into the darkness of slumber. From there, using the music of Pärt, Grieg, Messiaen, Rameau, and new works by Paul Haas, Sympho weaves a dream sequence whose continuous narrative evokes struggle, death, and reconciliation. Musicians move around the space and music envelops the audience from all sides. Sympho’s lighting designer occasionally breaks the monochrome of darkness with various degrees of light, but only as it assists the flow of the narrative. Haas conceived of this program idea in response to his own experience as a concert-goer. “I’ve often sat through parts of a concert with my eyes closed,” he says, “to focus on the music and to avoid the usual distractions – the patron reading the program here, or the glow of the iPhone there. And that led me to wonder if Sympho could just create a concert with that built-in cocoon of darkness.” Given Sympho’s mission to present classical music in new, thoughtful, and thought-provoking ways, “it was only natural that we should experiment with the idea,” he continues. “But to be clear,” Haas emphatically explains, “the goal of this concert is not just to turn off the lights. Rather, it’s to allow the darkness, in conjunction with a carefully-curated and commissioned program of musical offerings, to transport the audience into an altered state of awareness. The result should be a one-of-a-kind evening of glorious music.” ASCENDING DARKNESS: SOUNDTRACK TO A DREAM Wednesday, May 8, 2013, 8 p.m. Church of the Ascension Fifth Avenue at 10th Street, New York, NY 10011 Tickets: Reserved $50, General $25, Student $15 (ID required); available at www.symphoconcerts.org and Brown Paper Tickets (http://www.brownpapertickets.com/ KAPOW! Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Wolverine, and…the Green Lama? Last season, Sympho introduced New Yorkers to this Buddhist crusader’s adventures, and the response was uniformly enthusiastic, with salon.com describing the “mixed-media sensory experience” as “…like nothing I’ve seen before and…even border[ing] on the spiritual.” “KAPOW!” presents the stand-alone Episodes 1 and 3. Seven musicians from Sympho will provide the live, polystylistic soundtrack -- both acoustic and electronic, pre-composed and improvised -- to projected images from the comic books themselves, while acclaimed actors will bring the words and images to life onstage. Narrated and directed by WQXR’s Elliott Forrest, “KAPOW!” brings Jethro Dumont’s – the Green Lama’s – crime-fighting escapades to life. Law and Order SVU’s Linus Roache will portray the Green Lama. Sympho will take audience members through a sonic and visual “tour” of selections from the Rubin Museum’s past and current collections, pairing the projected images with a wide variety of improvised and commissioned musical selections. “Electric Sheep” fans may also find a surprise or two included in the mix. KAPOW! Wednesday, June 12, 2013, 7 p.m. Rubin Museum of Art 150 West 17th Street, New York, NY 10011 Tickets: General $25; available at www.rmanyc.org, by calling 212.620.5000 x344 and at www.symphoconcerts.org. About SYMPHO Sympho performances offer a distinctive and expanded view of the classical music experience. In collaboration with like-minded musicians and artists from other disciplines, Sympho provides audiences with engaging, immersive, multisensory experiences. Starting in 2006 with its critically-acclaimed debut concert experience, REWIND, Paul Haas has honed a performance practice based on maximizing the visceral impact of sound on audience members by using alternative musician placement and movement constructs. Informed by the great masters of the Renaissance and early Baroque periods, church music of the Episcopal liturgy, and various world music traditions, Haas and Sympho are deeply interested in the sonic possibilities of unusually large or idiosyncratic performance spaces. Sympho has elicited rave responses both from its audiences and the press. According to The New York Times, Sympho “refits the classical experience for a new century…performed with passion and beauty by Mr. Haas and his young players.” This is “like nothing you’ve seen before…Mr. Haas has seen the future of classical music,” exclaimed WQXR FM in New York City. The San Jose Mercury News called Sympho performances “terrific… In 2011 Sympho was commissioned to create a site-specific concert event for the opening night of the Park Avenue Armory’s avant-garde Tune-In Music Festival, playing to a capacity crowd in the Armory’s 55,000-square- End
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