Vijay Iyer: Music of Transformation RADHE RADHE: Rites of Holi and Mutations I - X Fri, Dec 5 PROGRAM RADHE RADHE: Rites of Holi Video engineer Sven Furberg Royce Hall Lighting designer Rus Snelling 8pm Music by VIJAY IYER Associate lighting designer Michael Mauren Additional Cinematography (India) Prashant Film directed, edited and designed by Prashant Bhargava PERFORMANCE DURATION: Bhargava Creative Producer (India) Anjali Panjabi Approximately 100 minutes; International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) Art Direction & Assistant Director (India) Sujata One intermission conducted by Steven Schick Sharma Virk Executive Producer Stephen Cohen for Music + Creative Producer (Radha Shoot) Nikhil PRE-SHOW CONCERT Art Melnechuk The Westwood Smalls on Director of Photography (Radha Shoot) Jay Silver the Royce Terrace. Featuring Anna George as RADHA Production Design (Radha Shoot) Mimi Bai Appearances by Nawazuddin Siddiqui & Art Director (Radha Shoot) Raoul Anchando POST-SHOW SIGNING Beatrice Ordeix Costume and Styling (Radha Shoot) Sheena Sood Vijay Iyer and Prashant Director of Photography Craig Marsden Make-up (Radha Shoot) Rebecca Casciano Bhargava in the Lobby. Colorist Blase Theodore, Contact Di Conductor Steven Schick Piano Vijay Iyer (all Compositions ©2013-2014 Schott Music Violin Michi Wiancko Corporation, New York) CAP UCA SPONSORS Viola Miranda Cuckson Supported in part by the Percussion, Drum Set Tyshawn Sorey RADHE RADHE: Rites of Holi National Endowment for the Created For And Commissioned By Carolina Arts and the Sally & William International Contemporary Ensemble Performing Arts At The University Of North A. Rutter Endowment for Piano Cory Smythe Carolina At Chapel Hill. the Performing Arts. Flute Alice Teyssier Clarinet, Bass Clarinet Joshua Rubin Additional commissioning funds for revision and Bassoon, Contrabassoon Rebekah Heller completion of the work were provided by The Trumpet Brandon Ridenour Brooklyn Academy of Music/Next Wave Festival, MEDIA SPONSOR: Violin Jennifer Curtis CAP UCLA and The Strathmore. Viola Kyle Armbrust Cello Kivie Cahn-Lipman Vijay Iyer is a Steinway artist and uses Ableton Live Bass Brian Ellingson software. He records for ECM Records. Percussion Ross Karre Live sound engineer Levy Lorenzo MESSAGE FROM THE CENTER -INTERMISSION- Art is inherently transformative. The work of artists MUTATIONS I-X and the results of the ideas and forms in which they invest their curiosity, their creativity and their talents For string quartet, piano and electronics is imbued with the ability to change the shape of things we thought we once knew, or to wholly create Vijay Iyer – piano, electronics something anew that allows us to reshape, reframe Miranda Cuckson – violin and rethink our own shapes in this world. Michi Wiancko – violin Kylr Armbrust – viola Vijay Iyer and Prashant Bhargava, two uniquely Kivie Cahn-Lipman - cello transformative artists, have collaborated to bring us a vivid rendering of an entire city embracing a Mutation I: Air transformative sentiment with RADHE RADHE: Mutation II: Rise Rites of Holi. Mutation III: Canon Mutation IV: Chain Or, as Vijay explains it so eloquently in the notes that Mutation V: Automata follow: “The result is a ballet of sorts: a performative Mutation VI: Waves encounter between live music and film, between lived Mutation VII: Kernel experience and myth, the self and the transformed Mutation VIII: Clade self, winter and spring.” Mutation IX: Descent Mutation X: Time The art of contemporary performance revolves around this powerful concept of lived experience, Commissioned by Ethel’s Foundation For The Arts with funding both the experience of the moment, the life and from The Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust performance experience of the artists on the stage, and the experiences and perceptions we the audience bring into this space as we lean forward to receive the ABOUT THE PROGRAM great artistic gifts being offered. RADHE RADHE: Rites of Holi Holi is known around the world as a joyful, chaotic and colorful It is a privilege and a gift to do the good work that celebration of springtime in India. To respond to Stravinsky’s own creates the opportunity for that shared experience famously chaotic work about springtime, we were intrigued by the to exist. To hold a space and intention for the artists possible connection with Holi. This festival provides an occasion to of our time who are committed to shaping and re- reconsider the aspects of ritual and transformation represented in shaping our perceptions of art and culture and music. Le Sacré du Printemps. This is Vijay Iyer’s second appearance at Royce Hall In early conversations, we realized that we were interested less in an and the second time we have worked closely with artistic fantasy of pagan sacrifice than in the lived and felt reality him to craft an expansive inquiry into the deep wells of individuals on the brink of change: the significance of myth in of artistry he inhabits. Last time, Vijay performed earthly life as a living heritage. Our attention turned to the Braj in several different jazz ensemble configurations, region of Uttar Pradesh, India, the mythical home of Krishna, the showing his skill as a versatile and intelligent band Hindu deity whose youthful flirtations with his beloved Radha leader. (or fondly Radhe) and her friends form one of the narratives for the holiday. According to one story, the young, dark-skinned god, We return him to this stage to further showcase annoyed that Radha was so fair, sneaks up on her and her friends, the versatility that is making him one of the most surprising the girls with showers of colored powder, perhaps evening important artists in modern music, and one least the score. inclined to sit inside any preconceived notions of genre boundary. Whether a playful strategy for overcoming racial difference, or a moment of interplay of gender and power, or simply the enactment We are incredibly fortunate to be music lovers of a youthful fantasy, this particular impulsive act is now the central, in a world that Vijay Iyer is dominating. His cathartic ritual of Holi. On that day everyone becomes Krishna transformative explorations into the raw potential and Radha; all participants throw color and get color thrown at that lives inside all music continues to take shape, them. A pulsing desire to unite with the goddess sends a city into a evolve and transform. feverish state of spinning and yearning. Everyone enters a state of uninhibited, ecstatic freedom that remains hidden for the rest of the We welcome the transformation. And we welcome you year. to share it with us. In March 2011, Prashant and his film crew traveled to Mathura and the surrounding region, where Holi celebrations last not one day and night, but eight. The cameras captured members of a community in the heightened throes of transformation, turning the seasons of their own lives. Temples fill with devotees, dancing without inhibition, elicit a structural transformation; in other movements, real-time pushing and shoving to receive blessings. Gangs of teenagers loiter acts governed by competing directives yield a emergent, spontaneous on corners with buckets of colorful liquid and powder waiting to order. These ten coexisting entities are linked either genetically or douse those who pass by. Men, high on intoxicating spirits, make by a kind of symbiosis. a pilgrimage to Radha’s village dressed in vibrant garb from the region of Krishna’s playground and equipped with ceremonial As all of this music unfolds, our intent, as players and observers, is shields; as the men boisterously taunt with sexually provocative to place ourselves fully in the moment with sound. Thank you for chants, women await armed with long sticks ready to beat them. listening. Purging fires, expressions of devoutness, and feats of austerity offer a nighttime counterpoint to the baudy daytime revels. --Vijay Iyer RADHE RADHE: Rites of Holi is a journey of devotion for the ABOUT THE ARTISTS goddess Radha. In this project, we answer back to the Sacré score and ballet with a new work for chamber ensemble and film. Vijay Iyer International Contemporary Ensemble will perform a suite for three Grammy-nominated composer-pianist Vijay Iyer (pronounced winds, three strings, two percussion, two pianos, and electronics, in “VID-jay EYE-yer”) was described by Pitchfork Magazine as “one live counterpoint with cinematic episodes compiled from the Holi of the most interesting and vital young pianists in jazz today,” by footage. The result is also a ballet of sorts: a performative encounter the Los Angeles Weekly as “a boundless and deeply important young between live music and film, between lived experience and myth, the star,” and by Minnesota Public Radio as “an American treasure.” self and the transformed self, winter and spring. He was recently named DownBeat Magazine’s 2014 Pianist of the Year, a 2013 MacArthur Fellow, and a 2012 Doris Duke Performing --Vijay Iyer & Prashant Bhargava Artist. Iyer received an unprecedented “quintuple crown” in the 2012 DownBeat International Critics Poll (winning Jazz Artist of MUTATIONS I-X the Year, Pianist of the Year, Jazz Album of the Year, Jazz Group of Mutations are incremental, stochastic changes in genetic material the Year, and Rising Star Composer categories), a “quadruple crown” -- the noise in our genes. Evolution is not an efficient, goal- in the JazzTimes extended critics poll (winning Artist of the Year, directed process of absolute “betterment” of a species; rather, it Acoustic/Mainstream Group of the Year, Pianist of the Year, and is a contingent, dynamic, noisy interaction between a species and Album of the Year), the Pianist of the Year Awards for both 2012 and innumerable competing, fluctuating environmental factors -- a 2013 from the Jazz Journalists Association, and the 2013 ECHO situated, ecosystem-wide improvisation. Award (the “German Grammy”) for best international pianist. Mutations I-X, a suite for string quartet, piano, and electronics, was In March 2014, Iyer released Mutations, his “spectacular debut on first performed in 2005.