THE TUNE in FESTIVAL a Convergence of Music and Poetry in a Time of Change Wed, Oct 28-Sat, Oct 31, 2020 ART MATTERS NOW MORE THAN EVER
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
THE TUNE IN FESTIVAL A convergence of music and poetry in a time of change Wed, Oct 28-Sat, Oct 31, 2020 ART MATTERS NOW MORE THAN EVER WELCOME TO UCLA’S CENTER FOR THE ART OF PERFORMANCE UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA) is the public facing research and presenting organization for the performing arts at the University of California, Los Angeles—one of the world’s leading public research universities. We are housed within the UCLA School of the Arts & Architecture along with the Hammer and Fowler museums. The central pursuit of our work as an organization is to sustain the diversity of contemporary performing artists while celebrating their contributions to culture. We acknowledge, amplify and support artists through major presentations, commissions and creative development initiatives. Our programs offer audiences a direct connection to the ideas, perspectives and concerns of living artists. Through the lens of dance, theater, music, literary arts, digital media arts and collaborative disciplines, informed by diverse racial and cultural backgrounds, artists and audiences come together in our theaters and public spaces to explore new ways of seeing that expands our understanding of the world we live in now. cap.ucla.edu #CAPUCLA CAP UCLA Presents THE TUNE IN FESTIVAL A convergence of music and poetry in a time of change Program 1: GATHER UP Wed, Oct 28 at 7PM PDT Approximate running time: 90 minutes Video Direction: Carole Kim and Friends The Tune In Festival was made possible by a generous gift from composer Rachel Fuller (Animal Requiem) and her husband, Pete Townshend (The Who). Additional funds provided by the Ginny Mancini Endowment for Vocal Performance, the Royce Center Circle Endowment Fund and the Royce Gala Endowment. FESTIVAL SCHEDULE GATHER UP: Wed, Oct 28 7PM - Auntie Sewing Squad 7:10PM - Kronos Quartet & Friends Celebrate Pete Seeger, with Tehillah Alphonso, Jolie Holland, Lee Knight, Tonoccus McClain, Meklit, and Tonality PRESS ON: Thu, Oct 29 6:45PM - B. Wurtz 7PM - The Small Glories 7:25PM - B. Wurtz 7:30PM - Magos Herrera 8PM - Get Lit 8:30PM - Cambalache 9:15 PM - Claudia Lennear with Friends STAY STRONG: Fri, Oct 30 4:30PM - Toshi Reagon & BIGLovely Photo by:Randi Malkin Steinberger 5:45PM - Dan + Claudia Zanes 6:40PM - Get Lit 7:00PM - Ash Grove Alumni 7:30PM - Sweet Honey In the Rock 8:15PM - Perla Batalla 9:00PM - Tonality SING OUT: Sat, Oct 31 11AM - Dan + Claudia Zanes 12PM - Nano Stern 3:30PM - Get Lit 4PM - Ash Grove Alumni 4:30PM - Carla Canales 5PM - Urban Voices Project 5:20PM - Sunny War 7PM - Toshi Reagon & BIGLovely 8PM - Quetzal 8:30PM - Vijay Gupta and Los Angeles Poverty Department, with Kronos Quartet MESSAGE FROM THE CENTER One of the driving features of CAP UCLA’s 2020-21 Season is The Tune In Festival; a convergence of music and poetry in the time of change. Tune In is a four-day convening of artists, bands, ensembles and soloists from across the U.S., Canada and Latin America performing together in a grand gesture of cross-cultural solidarity that shares the time-honored tradition of music and poetry as a wellspring of resilience, resistance and inspiration. Every generation and era that ushers forth the human need for major change has an anthem or verse that call people to stand up. The Tune In Festival is chock full of song lines and rhymes from some of our most revered voices who speak from the rousing perspective of activating truth. I knew we needed folk singers and poets in the fall of 2020—long before COVID-19, the despicable tragedy of George Floyd and so many others and the escalated tension that befalls us during a “normal” presidential election, let alone this one. I started talking with musicians and poets across genres and generations, with a mind towards re-booting The Tune In Festival I had brought with me to L.A. after presenting it at the Park Avenue Armory in New York. What is the music we want to hear from others’ struggles for human rights and justice? What are the poets of today speaking to? What do we want to remind one another of and inspire us as we look to the future? Not surprisingly, Kronos Quartet was thinking along the same lines and were Photo by:Randi Malkin Steinberger developing a concert to celebrate the incredible life and music of Pete Seeger for the 100 year anniversary of his birth. “We Shall Overcome” is an anthem for the ages and across the ongoing struggles for civil rights that continue to be sought by successive generations. As Kronos planned their concert for CAP UCLA, I started working on building the festival around these shared aims. Tune In is the voice of right now speaking up and out for the unmet needs and rights of so many in the Black and brown communities in America since our founding. What these music-makers and poets address through their lives and experience are the anthems that say ENOUGH. Conjoined through successive generations of music, poetry and song, they inspire us all to push forward for the changes we have always known to be urgent. Tune In is also an incredible celebration of the voices of artists who can inspire us to rise up, tune in, resist, keep pushing and support one another as society’s other narratives try to push us in the opposite direction. This is the soundtrack of getting out the vote! This is the soundtrack of now! And it is going to be joyous! Kristy Edmunds Executive and Artistic Director KRONOS QUARTET SONG LIST “Storyteller” Composer: Jacob Garchik “Step By Step” Composer: Traditional “Which Side Are You On” Arranger: Waldemar Hille and Composer: Florence Reece Pete Seeger, with further Arranger: Jacob Garchik arrangement by Kronos Quartet “The President Sang Amazing “Where Have All The Flowers Grace” Gone” Composer:Zoe Mulford Composer: Pete Seeger Arranger: Jacob Garchik Arranger: Jacob Garchik “The House of the Rising Sun” “Mbube” Composer: Traditional Composer: Solomon Linda Arranger:Jacob Garchik Arranger: Jacob Garchik “If I Had A Hammer” “Turn, Turn, Turn” Composer: Pete Seeger, Composer: Pete Seeger Lee Hays Arranger: Jacob Garchik Arranger: Jacob Garchik “We Shall Overcome” “Garbage” Composer: Traditional Composer: Bill Steele Arranger: Adapted by Zilphia Arranger: Jacob Garchik Horton, Frank Hamilton, Guy Carawan, and Pete Seeger; “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine” arranged for string quartet by Composer: Traditional Jacob Garchik Arranger: Huddie Ledbetter, with further arrangement by The Weavers and Jacob Garchik ABOUT THE ARTISTS AUNTIE SEWING SQUAD — Radical Care in the Time of Coronavirus is a film directed and edited by Valerie Soe, in collaboration with the Auntie Sewing Squad, music from Kronos’ Fifty for the Future: “Pulsation,” by Susie Ibarra, performed by Kronos Quartet. This piece looks at the Auntie Sewing Squad, a group of mostly women of color volunteers who came together under the leadership of Kristina Wong following the U.S. government’s botched response to the COVID-19 crisis. The Aunties sew masks for farmworkers, day laborers, unhoused people, refugee and immigrant groups, First Nations tribes, recently incarcerated people, Black Lives Matter demonstrators, and others in need in the U.S. Using images, voices and sounds primarily generated by the Aunties themselves, in tandem with Kronos Quartet’s performance of Susie Ibarra’s “Pulsation,” this film seeks to inspire others to work toward radical care in the time of coronavirus. Produced by Janet Cowperthwaite and Reshena Liao and production management by Kronos Performing Arts Association. auntiesewingsquad.com KRONOS QUARTET — Since 1973, San Francisco’s Kronos Quartet—David Harrington (violin), John Sherba (violin), Hank Dutt (viola) and Sunny Yang (cello)—has combined a spirit of fearless exploration with a commitment to continually reimagine the string quartet experience. In the process, Kronos has become one of the world’s most celebrated and influential ensembles, performing thousands of concerts, releasing more than 60 recordings, collaborating with an eclectic mix of composers and performers, and commissioning over 1000 works and arrangements for string quartet. The group has won over 40 awards, including two Grammys, the prestigious Polar Music and Avery Fisher Prizes and Edison Klassiek Oeuvreprijs. The nonprofit Kronos Performing Arts Association manages all aspects of Kronos’ work, including the commissioning of new works, concert tours and home season performances, education programs and the annual Kronos Festival. In 2015, Kronos launched 50 for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire, an education and legacy project that is commissioning—and distributing online for free—50 new works for string quartet composed by 25 women and 25 men. kronosquartet.org ABOUT THE GUEST ARTISTS TEHILLAH ALPHONSO — New-Jersey-born and Nebraska-raised, Tehillah Alphonso graduated from the University of Southern California. She received her B.M. in Popular Music Performance with a vocal emphasis in the Thornton School of Music and was named Outstanding Graduate in 2020. Though music was introduced to Tehillah at the early age of three years old, her musical endeavors began in 2014 with her acceptance into A Cappella Academy, a teen summer intensive founded by Ben Bram, Robert Dietz, and Avi Kaplan, designed to train and mentor up-and-coming vocal talents in the art of a cappella. Alongside attending Academy for the next two years she has had the privilege of performing in Carnegie Hall as a part of the 2015 Honors Performance Series Choir and in the New World Center in Miami as a 2016 YoungArts Popular Voice finalist. While a full-time student at USC, Tehillah served as Business Manager and Music Director of USC’s premiere a cappella group and five-time ICCA champions, the SoCal VoCals.