What: Experimental composer-collectives thingNY and Varispeed perform three vocal-heavy works around a communal table on Roulette’s stage.
When: Wednesday, May 30, 2018
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost: $25 Door, $20 Online
Info: www.roulette.org / (917) 267-0368
Brooklyn, NY – Two quirky, unconventional groups merge for vocal chamber music by Gelsey Bell, Rick Burkhardt, and the legendary absurdist Kenneth Gaburo. First, thingNY presents a short selection of songs from Gelsey Bell’s Rolodex, in which the ensemble surrounds the interrogation table to investigate a crime. Next, thingNY performs Rick Burkhardt’s Passover, a performance-ritual for six singing/speaking instrumentalists seated at a dinner table. Finally, Varispeed performs a new homespun arrangement of Kenneth Gaburo’s 1968 cult-classic Maledetto, a fusion of taxonomy lecture, absurdist inner dialogue, Dadaist choral music, and your uncle’s dirty jokes for seven “virtuoso speakers.” Three works are performed around a communal table.
thingNY is a New-York-based collective of composer‐performers who fuse electronic and acoustic chamber music with new opera, improvisation, theater, song, and installation.
Varispeed is a collective of composer-performers that creates site-specific, sometimes-participatory, oftentimes-durational, forevermore-experimental events.
Rick Burkhardt is an Obie-award-winning playwright, composer, director, and performer. He is a founding member of the Nonsense Company, an experimental chamber music-theater trio, and the Prince Myshkins, a cabaret-folk political satire duo.
Lineup:
Gelsey Bell – Voice, Percussion, Celtic Harp
Andrew Livingston – Voice, Double Bass, Cello
Paul Pinto – Voice, Percussion
Erin Rogers – Voice, Saxophone
Dave Ruder – Voice, Clarinet, Guitar
Jeffrey Young – Voice, Violin
Brian McCorkle – Voice
Aliza Simons – Voice