What: Gemma Peacocke presents a newly commissioned multimedia song cycle adapted from Afghan women’s folk poems.
When: Thursday, June 22, 2017, 8pm
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost: $25/20 Online $20/15 Doors
Info: www.roulette.org / (917) 267-0368
Tickets: General Admission $20, Members/Students/Seniors $15, $25/20 Tickets at the door
Brooklyn, NY – New Zealand composer Gemma Peacocke presents Waves + Lines, a multimedia song cycle for soprano, electronics and chamber ensemble, adapted from Eliza Griswold‘s book, I Am the Beggar of the World: Landays from Contemporary Afghanistan.
Landays comprise a single rhyming couplet on subjects like love, grief, home, and war. They relay both a collective and a very individual experience so vivid and relatable that it is hard not to be captivated by the passion, desperation, and humor of the authors. Exploring the distance, anonymity and strange intimacy of phone calls, text messages, and radio broadcasts in which the poems are shared, the performances will feature the use of fixed electronics and projections. The ultra-conservative regime of the Taliban has meant that the lives of Afghani women are largely invisible to the outside world. Landays offer a surprising and vivid glimpse into this secret world.
New-York-via-New-Zealand composer Gemma Peacocke writes both acoustic and electronic music and composes music that seamlessly combines electronics with traditional instruments and voices. She often collaborates with filmmakers, choreographers, and theatre practitioners, including with director Benita de Wit and renowned choreographer Sylvain Émard. Peacocke studied with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Julia Wolfe with support from the Arts Council of New Zealand and NYU Steinhardt, and spent fall 2015 studying at the Institute for Music / Acoustic Research and Coordination (IRCAM) in Paris. Her music has been performed in New Zealand, Australia, Austria, Brazil, United States, and Denmark.