What: World premiere of composer and vocalist Gabrielle Herbst’s opera exploring vulnerability, anxiety, fear, and struggle through the lens of self-care and interpersonal relationships.
When: Thursday, May 31, 2018
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost: $20 Door, $15 Online
Info: www.roulette.org / (917) 267-0368
Brooklyn, NY – How do we talk about our lives in 2018? What methods do we use to explore it? Gabrielle Herbst returns to Roulette to present Vulnerability, an opera unpacking America’s current sociopolitical climate and the ways we live within it. Exploring themes of personal and collective vulnerability, anxiety, fear and struggle, while investigating self-care and interpersonal relationships, this process-based work is written for two voices and two loop pedals, electronics, harp, violin, cello, flute, piano and clarinet, and is rendered through a dreamlike non-narrative tableaux with close harmonization, textural rhythms, melismatic vocals, electronics, and cross-genre pollination. The work seeks to connect internal struggles to outward means.
Gabrielle Herbst (b. 1986) is a composer and vocalist residing in Brooklyn. Herbst’s formal training began at an early age, studying Balinese dance and gamelan in Indonesia while learning both the clarinet and piano. She continued her training at Bard College where she studied voice and composition. Her work has been showcased at Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center, as well as Roulette, who in 2014 commissioned and premiered her first opera, Bodiless. Herbst has also developed a repertoire of short-form, vocal-centric compositions under the name GABI, driven by solitary explorations with a dual-track loop pedal.
The Nouveau Classical Project is a New York-based, all-women contemporary classical music ensemble that is “bringing a refreshing edge to the widely conservative genre” (VICE). It began by collaborating with fashion designers for its concerts and has expanded to creating multidisciplinary performances. Its mission is to engage new audiences and show that classical music is a living, breathing art form.
Lineup:
The Nouveau Classical Project
Laura Cocks – Flute
Mara Mayer – Clarinet
Maya Bennardo – Violin
Thea Mesirow – Cello
Sugar Vendil – Piano
Marilu Donovan – Harp
Charlotte Mundy – Voice
Gabrielle Herbst – Voice