Lauded in the New York Times for her “admirable fluidity,” soprano Amy Petrongelli revels in singing music of all different periods and styles.
It is 2017. We are a nation polarized, a society reeling. In times like these it's the artists' duty to interpret, to comment upon, to draw attention to, and even to resist injustices and inequalities. Bent Frequency presents a program of works by artists determined to explore the difficult topics of modern injustice and advocate for equality, peace, and love through commentary, satire, and reflection. The works in this program invite the listener to think anew on our common humanity and uncommon times. With love, we resist!
FREE! Kopleff Recital Hall, Nov. 11, 8pm
Selections from The Fall of the Empire - Frederic Rzewski
Presidential Address - Daniel Felsenfeld
R.I.P.T. - Dorothy Hindman
My Feelings Now - Eve Beglarian
I will learn to love a person - Christopher Cerrone
Featuring:
Amy Petrongelli, soprano
Jan Berry Baker, saxophone
Tim Whitehead, piano
Stuart Gerber, percussion
Notes on works presented:
The Fall of the Empire–The empires and dynasties of human history have fallen, not so much by the hands of outside conquerors, but rather have crumbled from within. The collection of texts assembled by Rzewski into a kind of play or monodrama—variously individual “snapshots” isolated in time and place, but connected and connectable—are yet another retelling of that story.
Presidential Address - for soprano voice and piano, recontextualizes the words of Donald Trump, as heard in the "locker room."
R.I.P.T addresses the epidemic of gun violence and murder of young black men, as poignantly captured in the new tradition of creating memorial T-shirts with the pictures of the murdered men's faces. The music draws its source material from "Beef" by L’il Reese, L’il Durk, and Fredo Santana. "Beef" was the song playing when David Dunn murdered Jordan Russell Davis, in an altercation that began because Dunn felt the music was playing too loudly in the SUV Davis was riding in.
The lyrics of My Feelings Now are adapted from various things the Indonesian dancer and choreographer Hartati said during a residency in Los Angeles with Eve in the summer of 1996.
I will learn to love a person is a piece about relationships—personal, romantic, harmonic, and timbral. Like all of his music, it obsessively controls its limited musical materials in service of big emotional catharses. Its protagonist is a precocious observer of the world and other people, but also immature and wildly heartbroken; the process of the piece is the discovery that there is, of course, no set of rules that govern human relationships.
Bent Frequency's 2017-18 season supported in part by the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University and Amphion Foundation.
Funding for this program is provided by the Fulton County Board of Commissioners.
If you need reasonable modifications due to a disability, including communications in an alternate format, in order to participate in any County-sponsored program or meeting, please contact Bent Frequency at 404-981-3023 or info.bentfrequency@gmail.com, seven (7) days in advance to facilitate your request. For TDD/TTY or Georgia Relay Service Access, dial 711.
To obtain this information in an accessible format, please call (404) 981-3023.