August 21 at 8 pm: HOUSE BLEND IV
PS21 Pavilion Theater
A double bill: Bonnie Whiting performs Wang Lu's Stages for solo speaking/singing percussionist, with stage design by Polly Apfelbaum, and Frederic Rzewski's To the Earth for speaking percussionist and four flower pots (text is from a Homeric hymn). Plus a recital by bass-baritone Davóne Tines.
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Wang Lu’s Stages (2023) for solo speaking/singing percussionist, performed by Bonnie Whiting, with stage design by Polly Apfelbaum.
Composed collaboratively with Whiting, with a text adapted from Lucy Corin’s story, “Questions in Significantly Smaller Font,” Wang Lu’s music incorporates urban environmental sounds, linguistic intonation and contours, traditional Chinese elements, and free improvisation. Stages grew out of Wang and Whiting’s memories of confusion and struggle, Wang as a Communist Young Pioneer in China and Whiting caught between family and religious extremism. The work uncovers and explores hidden stages of consciousness, expressed through sounds, physical movement, vocalizations, and recited texts, with familiar objects—among them, pot lids, infant music boxes, radios, SOLO cups, thermal sheets—deployed as musical instruments.
“If you want to be a percussionist in the 21st century, you've got to play a lot more than just drums. From flower pots to file racks and found objects, . . . if you can hit, shake, or strike it, it's a percussion instrument. That's what drew Bonnie Whiting to the big, wide world of contemporary percussion. . . . a sense of flexibility and possibility — finding music in everyday objects.” — Maggie Molloy, NPR Slingshot
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"Davóne Tines is changing what it means to be a classical singer" —Alex Ross, The New Yorker
Bass-baritone Davóne Tines’s daring recitals stretch the boundaries of what classical music can be and the impact it has on audiences. In works such as Recital No. 1: MASS, he interweaves elements of the Catholic Mass by composers from J. S. Bach to Carolyn Shaw and his own experiences to explore themes of spirituality, justice, and identity. LA Times critic Marc Swed called him “one of the most powerful voices of our time, as mesmerizing as a singer can be. His voice can fill a space and then some, ringing gloriously.”
Among Tines’s thematic compositions are The Black Clown, a searing rumination on Black history and identity based on the Langston Hughes poem co-created with Michael Schachter, who wrote the rollicking musical-theater score, and VIGIL, in memory of Breonna Taylor, who was shot by police in her own home, a collaboration with fellow AMOC members pianist Conor Hanick and composers Igée Dieudonné and Matthew Aucoin.
Alex Ross called Tines’s performance of the Handel aria “Shake the Heavens” “one of those moments which anyone who attends concerts lives to witness: within thirty seconds, I knew I was in the presence of a major artist.”
House Blend is PS21’s annual chamber music series exploring a full range of adventurous music and creative modes of expression, fostering new collaborations specific to our place, venue, and audiences.
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About PS21
A vibrant center for contemporary performance in the Hudson Valley, PS21 “presents work that challenges and invites” (The New York Times): adventurous productions by leading and emerging American and international artists in music, dance, and theater, and visionaries creating entirely new genres. On our open-air Pavilion Theater stage, across our expansive, unspoiled grounds, and in the diverse surrounding communities, PS21 cultivates and presents productions that transcend aesthetic boundaries and revitalize existing artistic languages and grammars. Throughout the year, we host developmental residencies for dancers, musicians, actors, and creators of original, even unclassifiable new work. Rooted in community collaboration, PS21’s programming engages creatively with critical global and social issues. It is a mecca for innovative and original artistic voices, a destination for performance that can be experienced nowhere else in the region. PS21’s Pavilion Theater is a green-energy marvel surrounded by 100 acres of unspoiled meadows, trails, and woodlands that are a haven to wildlife and visitors across the region. Integrated into our unspoiled campus, the theater embodies our commitments to the public: open, inviting, and optimized for their enjoyment and encouraging citizen expression and participation.
Photography
PS21 will take photos of this event for use in social media and on our website. The photos sometimes include audiences. Your attendance at this performance indicates you consent to appear in PS21 photography. If you would prefer not to appear in any photos, please let a staff member know, and we will be glad to accommodate your request.
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