Yvette Janine Jackson’s T-Minus is part of a series of radio operas themed around the environmental and socioeconomic impact of space tourism on local communities near launch sites. The idea was prompted by the livestream of the SpaceX Crew Dragon Demo-2 in May 2020 which took place at a time when people around the world were taking to the streets in protests against police brutality and systemic racism. The juxtaposition of events evoked a 1970’s Gil Scott-Heron poem come to fruition. T-Minus builds on Left Behind, which was premiered by Jackson’s Radio Opera Workshop ensemble at the Venice Music Biennale, and The Coding, a video concréte influenced by Samuel Delany’s Babel-17 novel that examines the power of language.

Radio opera is a term Jackson first used to describe her narrative electroacoustic compositions, such as the Invisible People series, that frequently forefront historical events and social issues. The term continues to take on new meaning for the composer as she expands these ideas to include live performance, visuals, lighting, and interactivity. Influenced by productions from the Golden Age of Radio Drama, Jackson’s radio operas leave room for the listener’s experiences to give meaning to the music.

Also on the program is Jackson’s Swan. Swan is a musical journey that unfolds in three scenes: it opens aboard the tallship Swan transporting Africans along the Middle Passage to the Americas and gradually morphs into a spacecraft headed to freedom. Swan is a radio opera without words; the fixed media performance allows the audience to be at the center of the narrative and experience the journey. The work is composed from original foley, analog synthesis, and recordings from studio sessions by Jackson’s Invisible People Ensemble (Yvette Janine Jackson, piano; Kjell Nordeson, vibraphone; Shayla James, viola; Judith Hamann, cello; Sam Dunscombe, bass clarinet) interpreting her traditionally notated and graphic scores, as well as guided improvisations.

Program:
Yvette Janine Jackson: T-Minus
Yvette Janine Jackson: Swan
performed by International Contemporary Ensemble

This concert will be broadcast live on Wave Farm Radio WGXC 90.7-FM in NY’s Upper Hudson Valley.

A livestream will be available free of charge at 8pm on the day of the performance and archived for future viewing. Watch below or on YouTube.

Now in its third decade, the International Contemporary Ensemble is a multidisciplinary collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers, and educators committed to building and innovating collaborative environments in order to inspire audiences to reimagine how they experience contemporary music and sound. Under the leadership of composer and Artistic Director George Lewis, the Ensemble creates a mosaic musical ecosystem as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), honoring the diversity of human experience and expression by commissioning, developing, recording, and performing the works of living artists in “a mission worth following” (I Care If You Listen).

Yvette Janine Jackson is a composer and installation artist who brings attention to historical events and social issues through her radio operas and narrative soundscape compositions. Her album Freedom, released by the Fridman Gallery, debuted as Contemporary Album of the Month in The Guardian, and The Wire described it as “one of the most unique releases to chronicle the Black American experience.” She has composed for a variety of projects, including The Cassandra Project film trilogy; Extant, an interactive composition for bass clarinet, cello, and game engine at ZKM Center for Art and Media; Hello, Tomorrow! for orchestra and electronics co-commissioned by American Composers Orchestra and Carnegie Hall; sound and light composition, RETURN, for the James Turrell, “Twilight Epiphany” Skyspace at Rice University; and her Radio Opera Workshop ensemble. Jackson’s permanent installations Underground (Codes) and Destination Freedom can be experienced at Wave Farm in Acra, New York, and the International African American Museum in Charleston, respectively.