Eliza Bagg – Soprano
Borah Han – Piano
Adam Holmes – Percussion
Shawn Lovato – Bass
Benita de Wit – Director
Felicia King – Projection Designer
Chris Thielking – Lighting Designer
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 ultraconservative 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.
Gemma Peacocke is a New York-based composer from New Zealand. She 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. Gemma studied with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Julia Wolfe with support from the Arts Council of New Zealand and NYU Steinhardt, and spent autumn of 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, the United States, and Denmark.
This performance is part of a series supported, in part, with funds from GENERATE: The Frances Richard Fund for Innovative Artists of Promise. Instituted in 2014, GENERATE aims to provide immediate, practical assistance to artists, helping them achieve ambitious work to be presented in our theater. Click here for more information about how you can contribute to GENERATE.
Gemma Peacocke: Waves + Lines is made possible, in part, by the Jerome Foundation.
The Jerome Foundation, a long-time supporter of new works, was a mainstay in Roulette’s early development. Its steadfast support for more than 30 years enables us to continue to present exciting, ambitious compositions by promising emerging artists. Each year, the Jerome Foundation supports five artist residencies and four commissions at Roulette.