Nicole Zaray – The Day I Found Love; A One-Women* Opera by Nicole Zaray – Music produced and written by Nicole Zaray. Pianist Ian Kane on synthesizers/keyboards. Visions of NYC by photographer Eva Mueller
Nicole scats about the blurry bobbing lights of the city while jam master jay and princess leia shriek backwards, that stride piano plays, and she does contact improvisation with images of midtown. You’ll dance too, let your soul out, and laugh with the person next to you. Or at least spill wine on them. It’s foundsound, trancy triphop and good old fashioned bar-room jazz rolled into one. But the loopiest time is had by all when she raps and sings outrageous bites of growing up in NYC. This is a weird and catchy one-women* opera with beats just under the mainstream radar and a sad but true take on urban independence as well as left-right brain theories.
*there’s more than one of her. you’ll see.
Nicole Zaray is a performer and composer who has also made several films. Known for philo-farcical-feminist storylines set to catchy, junkyard psy-fi trip-hop, Zaray’s musical performance work – which she writes, produces and scores – includes “The Prettiest Thing” and “Where is She?” both of which ran at PS 122 and Dixon Place and “Bread and Circus 3099” , which ran at The LaMama Annex. Her films include “Joe’s Day,” starring Debbie Harry, documentary on artist Mimi Gross — “Mimi’s World”, & the documentary, “Work, Life and the Unknowable”.
As a performer and vocalist her collaborations include “The Sticky Fingers of Time” by Hilary Brougher/Good Machine, which was seen at Venice International, Toronto International, and in over forty other cities worldwide. She was featured in “Under the Knife” by Theodora Skipitares, “Momento Mori” by Karen Finley, “Polly’s Panic Attack” by Sebastian Stuart, and “Thurma” by Jack Shamblin. She was the featured vocalist on Moby’s CDs “Feeling So Real” and “Next is the E” (Mute/Elektra). Nicole also teaches performance workshops at “Centro em Movimento” in Lisboa, Portugal.
Daniel Levin – Cellist Daniel Levin brings his quartet to Location One, performing works from his upcoming Hat Hut release. Levin, “a major new voice on his instrument and in improvised music” (Ed Hazell) leads the group, with Nate Wooley (trumpet), Matt Moran (vibes), and Joe Morris (bass).
Daniel Levin was born in 1974 and studied classical music intensively throughout high school, going on to the Mannes College of Music and the New England Conservatory. A chance experience improvising with a dancer at the New Arts Festival in Fort Meyers, Florida in the summer of 1993 inspired him to alter his view of himself as a musician. He now works as a composer and improviser, creating his own music as an interpretation of his experience of the world around him. He has worked with many major improvisers and composers in the creative music world. His recorded work includes Enter the Continent (Masashi Harada Condanction Ensemble) on EMANEM, and, as a leader, Don’t Go it Alone (Daniel Levin Quartet) on Riti Records.
To see full program, click on the attached image.
