Shelley Hirsch: "And So It Was and Was and WaAAass"

Shelley Hirsch: “And So It Was and Was and WaAAass”

Tuesday, January 23, 20248:00 pm

The celebrated composer and vocal artist/performer Shelley Hirsch returns to Roulette to present her new NYSCA-commissioned work, And So it Was And Was and WaAAassSSssSss: a night of compositions, improvisations, and texts anchored by her automatic writings generated in response to musical experiences. The texts are empathic, provocative, erotic, surreal, and based on both true and imaginary events with themes that contrast in focus, humor, timbre, arrangements, and emotion. For the first part of the program, Hirsch’s Suite of “Sext Tongs” will be illuminated with live projections by video artist Scott Kiernan and will feature Joanna Mattrey and Cleek Schrey on strings, Alice Cohen on keyboards and voice, Ka Baird on piano, and Lindsey Wilson and Dafna Naphtali on vocals.

“A unique poetry…telling of the waywardness and drift of language…full of lust and humour, lasciviousness and rebellion…” —Süddeutsche Zeitung

The second part of the evening includes “trance-like” language improvisations with Camilla Padgitt Coles playing bowls, Ka Baird on flute, voice and electronics, and the voices of Lindsey Wilson, Luisa Muhr, Dafna Naphtali, Alice Cohen, and Marie Claire Picher.

“…hearing her sing is like hearing all of nature blossoming forth from one body. Her whole oeuvre is a lesson in getting out of heads and into our bodies.” —Ben Gambuzza

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.

Born and raised in East New York Brooklyn, Shelley Hirsch has been pushing boundaries with her unique vocal art drawing on her life experiences, her memory, and her vivid imagination for decades. She has presented her compositions, staged multimedia works, improvisations, radio plays, installations, and collaborations in concert halls, clubs, festivals, theaters, museums, galleries, and on radio, film, and television on five continents. Hirsch’s fellowships and awards include The Foundation For Contemporary Arts Grants for Artists; The John Simon Memorial Guggenheim Fellowship; A Creative Capital Grant; NYFA fellowships in both Music and Interdisciplinary categories; AIR Grants from The DAAD in Berlin, Havestworks, Yaddo, Queenslab, etc, and NYSCA Individual Artist Commissions, the latest in for a music composition commission which will premiere in Winter, 2023 and a grant from NYFA NYC Women’s Fund for a recording which will be released in Sept 2023 Hirsch can be heard on seventy plus recordings. In 2018, her archives were acquired by the Fales Library at NYU for their Downtown Collection.

Shelley Hirsch: “And So It Was and Was and WaAAass”

Tuesday, January 23, 20248:00 pm

“A unique poetry…telling of the waywardness and drift of language…full of lust and humour, lasciviousness and rebellion…” —Süddeutsche Zeitung

“…hearing her sing is like hearing all of nature blossoming forth from one body. Her whole oeuvre is a lesson in getting out of heads and into our bodies.” —Ben Gambuzza

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.

Born and raised in East New York Brooklyn, Shelley Hirsch has been pushing boundaries with her unique vocal art drawing on her life experiences, her memory, and her vivid imagination for decades. She has presented her compositions, staged multimedia works, improvisations, radio plays, installations, and collaborations in concert halls, clubs, festivals, theaters, museums, galleries, and on radio, film, and television on five continents. Hirsch’s fellowships and awards include The Foundation For Contemporary Arts Grants for Artists; The John Simon Memorial Guggenheim Fellowship; A Creative Capital Grant; NYFA fellowships in both Music and Interdisciplinary categories; AIR Grants from The DAAD in Berlin, Havestworks, Yaddo, Queenslab, etc, and NYSCA Individual Artist Commissions, the latest in for a music composition commission which will premiere in Winter, 2023 and a grant from NYFA NYC Women’s Fund for a recording which will be released in Sept 2023 Hirsch can be heard on seventy plus recordings. In 2018, her archives were acquired by the Fales Library at NYU for their Downtown Collection.

And So it Was And Was and WaAAassSSssSss by Shelley Hirsch was commissioned by Roulette, made possible with funds provided by the New York State Council on the Arts. This performance is presented through Roulette’s GENERATE program, providing over 30 artists each year with in-depth creative and technical support.