Coming TogeTher/A tt i ca Rebecca LazieR N e w s p e a k Frederic rzewski Thursday, June 13 at 7:00 and 9:00 p.m. Friday, June 14 at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. saTurday, June 15 at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. The InvIsIble Dog ArT CenTer Coming TogeTher/ATTiCA Choreography by Rebecca Lazier in collaboration with the dancers Music: Frederic Rzewski, Coming Together and Attica (Coming Together Part 2) 1971 Performed by: Newspeak Part I – Coming Together Part II – Silence Part III – Attica Dancers: Asli Bulbul, Pierre Guilbault, Jennifer Lafferty, Rashaun Mitchell, Christopher Ralph and Silas Riener photo by Anna Finke Music performed by Newspeak: Mellissa Hughes, voice; James Johnston, keyboard; Taylor Levine, guitar; David T. Little, drums; Eileen Mack, clarinets; Peter Wise, Coming TogeTher/Attica was developed with support from the percussion; and special guests: Robert Burkhart, cello and Patti Kilroy, violin. Movement Research Artist Residency Project and funded in part by the Leonard and Sophie Davis Fund, the Canada Council for the Arts, Live Art Dance Lighting design: Davison Scandrett Productions and Scotia Festival of Music. These performances are made possible by grants from the Puffin Foundation, the Greater New York Arts Development Costume design: Mary Jo Mecca Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by the Brooklyn Arts Council, Inc., New Music USA’s 2013 Live Music for Dance House Manager: Katy Dammers Program and Princeton University’s Peter B. Lewis Center for the Arts, Committee Website Design: Melissa Fox on Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Program in Dance. Editor: Sydney Schiff Program and Postcard Designer: Peter Wise at Square Candy Design Sound Engineer: Tei Blow Funding has been made possible by the Puffin Foundation. Publicity: Steven Swartz at Dotdotdotmusic Photography: Anna Finke Rehearsed at the New 42nd Street Studios, Gibney Dance Center and Mark Morris Dance Center. No unauthorized photography or videotaping Frederic Rzewski studied music with Charles Mackey, Walter Piston, Roger Frederic rzewski: Sessions and Milton Babbitt in the United States. In 1960 he traveled to Italy to study with Luigi Dallapiccola. There he met Severino Gazzelloni, with whom notes on Coming Together and Attica he played in a number of concerts that marked the beginning of his career as a performer of new piano music. Rzewski’s early friendship with Christian Wolff Coming Together was written in “I think the combination of age and and David Behrman, and (through Wolff) his acquaintance with John Cage November and December of 1971 a greater coming together is responsible and David Tudor strongly influenced his development in both composition in response to a historical event, the for the speed of the passing time. It’s six and performance. In Rome in the mid-sixties, together with Alvin Curran and Attica Prison Riots. In September of months now, and I can tell you truthfully Richard Teitelbaum, he formed the MEV (Musica Elettronica Viva) group, that year, inmates of the state prison few periods in my life have passed so which quickly became known for its pioneering work in live electronics and in Attica, New York revolted and took quickly. I am in excellent physical and improvisation. Many of Rzewski’s works are inspired by secular and socio- control of a part of the institution. emotional health. There are doubtless historical themes, show a deep political conscience and feature improvisational Foremost among their demands was the subtle surprises ahead, but I feel secure elements. Some of his better-known works include: The People United Will recognition of their right “to be treated and ready. As lovers will contrast their Never Be Defeated! (36 variations on the Sergio Ortega song El pueblo unido as human beings.” After several days of emotions in times of crises, so am I jamás será vencido); a set of virtuosic piano variations written as a companion fruitless negotiations, Governor Nelson dealing with my environment. In the piece to Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations; North American Ballads; Night Crossing Rockefeller ordered state police to retake indifferent brutality, the incessant noise, with herman; Fougues; Fantasia and Sonata; The Price of Oil and Le Silence des the prison by force, on the grounds the experimental chemistry of food, Espaces Infinis. Recently he composed Nanosonatas (2007) and the Cadenza con that the lives of the guards whom the the ravings of lost hysterical men, I o senza Beethoven (2003), written for Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto. Since prisoners had taken as hostages were in can act with clarity and meaning. I am 1977 Rzewski has been Professor of Composition at the Conservatoire Royal danger. In the ensuing violence, forty- deliberate, sometimes even calculating, de Musique in Liege, Belgium. He has also taught at the Yale School of Music, three persons, including several of the seldom employing histrionics expect the University of Cincinnati, the State University of New York at Buffalo, the hostages, were killed and many more as a test of the reactions of others. I California Institute of the Arts, the University of California at San Diego, Mills wounded. One of the dead was Sam read much, exercise, talk to guards College, the Royal Conservatory of the Hague, the Hochschule der Kuenste in Melville, a prisoner who had played and inmates, feeling for the inevitable Berlin and the Hochschule fuer Musik in Karlsruhe. a significant role in organizing the direction of my life.” rebellion. Attica, subtitled Coming Together Part In the spring of 1971, Melville wrote a II, was originally intended to follow basic device for the generation of melodic or two instruments of the ensemble, letter to a friend describing his experience Coming Together after a short silence, so and rhythmic sequences is “squaring,” a while the others add only individual of the passage of time in prison. After that the two pieces together would form a form I first used in 1968 in Les Moutons notes or melodic fragments from time his death the letter was published in the pair of dark and light images on the same de Panurge, for an indeterminate number to time, according to rules specific to magazine, Ramparts. As I read it, I was subject. In this case, it is a survivor of the of melody instruments. In this technique, each section. Only in the final section impressed both by the poetic quality of event who speaks: Richard X. Clark, a a sequence of notes, measures, or phrases do all of the players join in playing all of the text and by its cryptic irony. I read it, prisoner who was freed on parole several is gradually accumulated by adding the notes. In Attica, a 28-beat melody reread it and reread it again. It seemed weeks after the massacre. As the car elements one at a time, then diminished is divided into four bars of seven beats, that I was trying both to capture a sense taking him to Buffalo passed the Attica by subtraction. In Coming Together, each of which is “squared” to become the of the physical presence of the writer town line, the reporter sitting next to him seven pitches are used to generate eight period of 49 beats. The four periods are and simultaneously to unlock a hidden asked how it felt to leave Attica behind triangular structures of 28 notes. Each then themselves “squared” to become a meaning from the simple but ambiguous him. His answer, “Attica is in front of of these melodic sequences is then sequence of sixteen periods. These are language. The act of reading and me,” became the text for this piece. “squared” to become either large sections played over a constant drone, with a long rereading finally led me to the idea of a The compositional techniques of 28x28=784 notes. The resulting dominant chord at the end. musical treatment. The text is as follows: employed in both pieces are similar. The chain of 6272 notes is played by one –As published in the score. Biographies with Mary Siedman and Dancers, John and performances with the Pittsburgh New York Department of Cultural Zullo, Helen Simoneau Danse and Pam Symphony Orchestra of Mozart’s Concerto Affairs, administered by the Brooklyn Tanowitz. He strives to give back in any K.453 (with original cadenzas). Johnston Arts Council, Inc., She has been artist- Asli Bulbul came to New York from way he can. Looking to leave this world is a founding member of Proteus, in-residence at Movement Research, The Istanbul, Turkey in 1997. After an full of creation and less of destruction, Newspeak and Electric Kompany and Joyce Theater Foundation, The Yard and apprenticeship with Tanztheater he is an artist who is working to better has performed in Carnegie Hall, Alice the Djerassi Resident Artist Program. Wuppertal/Pina Bausch in 2000, she himself day by day. Tully Hall, Ford Theater, The Library Rebecca is a Senior Lecturer at Princeton joined Bill.T.Jones/Arnie Zane Dance of Congress and Disney Hall among University and has previously been on Co. in 2001. Between 2001-2010, she others. Recent collaborators include the faculty at UCLA, Wesleyan University, took part in the creation of eight original Hailed by The New York Times as “ a Ethel Quartet, Zephyros Winds, Poul Trinity College, Hartford Ballet/ productions and danced in numerous versatile, charismatic soprano endowed Ruders, Jacob TV, David del Tredici and University of Hartford and Mimar Sinan repertory pieces performed in the US with brilliant technique and superlative Marc Mellits. He recently completed his Conservatory is Istanbul, Turkey. and internationally. Since then, she has stage instincts…indispensable to New Doctoral studies at the Manhattan School worked with Martha Clarke, Jennifer York’s new-music ecosystem” Mellissa of Music and currently lives in New York.