What: Nels Cline, Zeena Parkins, Jen Shyu, and others perform Rhapsody, an acoustic song cycle exploring the experience of travel.
When: Friday, March 2, 2018, 8pm
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost: $20 Online $25 Doors
Info: www.roulette.org // (917) 267-0368
Brooklyn, NY — Rhapsody is an acoustic, narrative song cycle which incorporates written music, improvisation, and vocals with lyrics to create an evening length performance. Rhapsody twists and turns, landing on song ‘events’ but never ending there, instead, spinning off in other directions, only to land again on a vocal moment, sung by Jen Shyu. Using acoustic harp (Zeena Parkins), piano (John Medeski), acoustic guitars (Nels Cline), and drums, autoharp, harmonica and percussion (Bobby Previte) the piece places the listener ‘in transit’ — traveling to an unknown place that subtly changes over the course of time, until in the end, they arrive at a surprise destination. Rhapsody was commissioned by the 2015 Greenfield Prize in Music at the Hermitage Artist Retreat. The recording will be released in March 2018 on RareNoise Records.
Bobby Previte is a composer and performer whose work explores the nexus between notated and improvised music. One of the seminal figures of the 1980s New York Downtown scene, Previte is the recipient of the 2015 Greenfield Prize for music, and was a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow in 2012. Leading a plethora of diverse ensembles from the drums, he has collaborated with many of the leading lights in and beyond the world of music.