BAM 2006 Next Wave Festival presents the New York premiere of Still Life with Commentator: An Oratorio

Critically acclaimed composer/pianist Vijay Iyer, internationally renowned theater director Ibrahim Quraishi, and prolific poet/writer/hip-hop artist Mike Ladd join forces to comment on America’s media obsession

BAM 2006 Next Wave Festival is sponsored by Altria Group, Inc.

Still Life with Commentator: An Oratorio Composed by Vijay Iyer Libretto by Michael C. Ladd Directed by Ibrahim Quraishi

Set Design by Robert Pyzocha Video Design by Prashant Bhargava Lighting Design by Stephen Arnold

BAM Harvey Theater (651 Fulton Street) Dec 6–9 at 7:30pm Dec 10 at 3pm Tickets: $20, 35, 45

BAMdialogue with Vijay Iyer, Michael C. Ladd, and Ibrahim Quraishi Dec 7, post-show (free for same-day ticketholders)

Brooklyn, NY/October 23, 2006—BAM 2006 Next Wave Festival presents Still Life with Commentator, a cross-media oratorio featuring an electro-acoustic score by pianist/composer Vijay Iyer, a libretto by poet/writer Michael C. Ladd, and a theatrical environment by conceptual artist/theater director Ibrahim Quraishi. An evening of propulsive music, spoken texts, digital interactivity, and movement performed by an eight-member ensemble of musicians and actors—including award-winning experimental vocalist Pamela Z—Still Life with Commentator is a darkly lyrical and sometimes comic portrayal of our media-filtered encounters with war and atrocity.

more… Still Life 2 Five performances of Still Life with Commentator: An Oratorio will take place in the BAM Harvey Theater (651 Fulton St.), on Dec 6–9 at 7:30pm and Dec. 10 at 3pm. Tickets—priced at $20, 35, 45—can be purchased by calling BAM Ticket Services or online at www.BAM.org.

About the work

As in the classical oratorio, in which a familiar religious narrative becomes the substance of an episodic musical work, Still Life with Commentator is suffused with the weight of a new kind of religion—namely, our addiction to the opiate of personal testimony: live newscasts, blogs, reality TV. Still Life addresses our participatory role as spectators with a perpetual hunger for the unspeakable and the tragic, and our continual passivity in the face of televised authority. Ladd’s poems decode and condense our post-9/11 culture of surveillance and spin, forming an ironic counterpoint with Iyer’s elegiac, cycling rhythms. With songs such as “Jon Stewart on Crossfire” and “Blog Mom’s Anthem” performed against Quraishi’s stark tableaus and a video backdrop of effected television clips and images created by Prashant Bhargava, the result is a living portrait of our televised moment.

Ladd and Iyer received critical acclaim for the work In What Language? A Song Cycle of Lives in Transit, a live multimedia project that premiered in 2003 at the Asia Society and was released as an album in 2004. The Boston Globe called the work “a triumph of a genre that doesn’t yet exist” and “a model of what makes good art connect: It is aggressively ambitious yet unfailingly accessible and deeply empathetic.” Rolling Stone said of the disc “A song cycle of powerful narrative invention and ravishing trance-jazz, In What Language? is about nothing less than the death of trust…It is also an eloquent tribute to the stubborn, regenerative powers of the human spirit.” The album version of Still Life with Commentator will be released this winter on Savoy Records.

About the artists

The Village Voice calls Vijay Iyer “the most commanding pianist and composer to emerge in recent years.” Iyer has released nine highly acclaimed albums, most recently Reimagining (2005) with his quartet and Raw Materials (2006) in duo with Rudresh Mahanthappa, both on Savoy Jazz. His numerous honors include the CalArts Alpert Award in the Arts and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. The Downbeat International Critics Poll named him #1 Rising Star Artist and Composer of 2006. He tours around the world with his various ensembles, and has collaborated with artists such as Steve Coleman, Roscoe Mitchell, Wadada Leo Smith, Amiri Baraka, Butch Morris, dead prez, Ethel, and DJ Spooky. His writings have been published in Music Perception, Journal of Consciousness Studies, Current Musicology, and Uptown Conversation: The New Jazz Studies. www.vijay-iyer.com.

Boston-born Michael C. Ladd is a poet, writer, and MC. His writings have been published in the literary magazines Long Shot Review and Bostonia, in the book Swing Low: Black Men Writing, and in the anthologies Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café, Bum Rush the Page, and Pour La Victoire, among others. Referred to as “one of hip-hop’s most restless minds” by The New Yorker, his widely praised albums include Easy Listening 4 Armageddon (1997), Welcome to the Afterfuture (2000), The Infesticons: Gun Hill Road (2000), Father Divine (2005), and Negrophilia (2005). As a Fellow at the Institute for Arts and Civic Dialogue at Harvard University, Ladd produced and directed Blood Black and Blue, a documentary/performance about African American police officers. He resides in Paris.

Ibrahim Quraishi is a conceptual artist, writer, choreographer, and co-founder and artistic director of Compagnie Faim de Siècle, a multi-cultural, multimedia performance company. Born in Pakistan, Quraishi has collaborated with artists from all over the world to showcase his unique interpretation of the socio-economic, artistic, and cultural fabrics of individual communities. He has presented his cross-media multimedia installation performances in Munich, Paris, New York, Sarajevo, Tel Aviv, Kyoto, New Delhi, and Tokyo. Quraishi has won a number of prestigious awards including the National Endowment for the Arts Grant (2005), a Rockefeller Fellowship (2000 & 2004), the Islamic World Arts Initiative (2004), and an Arts International grant for 2001 and 2003. Quraishi just completed his one-year artist residency in Vienna’s prestigious Schauspielhaus, where he created a controversial interpretation of W.A. Mozart’s “The Abduction of the Seraglio” under the title

more… Still Life 3 “Saray//Mozart alla turca” celebrating Mozart’s 250th anniversary for the International Mozartjahr 2006 Festival in Vienna. The Performing Arts Journal says of Quraishi, “no other influential theatre director besides Wilson…has created a style that is sustained across continents in the work of younger artists.”

About the Next Wave Festival

BAM’s Next Wave Festival, which enters its 24th season in 2006, has permanently changed the landscape of the performing arts through breakout performances, landmark productions, risky experiments, and once-in-a-lifetime moments. The Festival originated as a fall series entitled “The Next Wave/New Masters.” In November 1981, Philip Glass’ new opera, Satyagraha, was presented as one of four productions under the Next Wave moniker. A slightly more ambitious series followed in 1982, including a two-evening performance work—United States: Parts I-IV-by Laurie Anderson.

From the seeds of these two rich years grew an idea for something bolder and riskier. The Next Wave Festival, dedicated to exciting new works and cross-disciplinary collaborations by promising young artists, was launched in October 1983. Pieces that previously had been presented in downtown lofts and small “black box” theaters were staged in the exquisite 2,100-seat BAM Opera House (recently renamed the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House), a renovated 1,000-seat playhouse (the Helen Carey Playhouse, now home to BAM Rose Cinemas), and a flexible 300-seat performance venue (the Lepercq Space). In 1987, BAM opened another mainstage-the 874-seat Majestic Theater- since renamed the BAM Harvey Theater in honor of Harvey Lichtenstein (who stepped down in 1999 after a 32-year tenure as president and executive producer). Lichtenstein was succeeded by Karen Brooks Hopkins as president and Joseph V. Melillo as executive producer. The Next Wave Festival is curated by Joseph V. Melillo.

Credits

BAM 2006 Next Wave Festival is sponsored by Altria Group, Inc. Programming in the BAM Harvey Theater is endowed by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

Music programming at BAM is made possible by a generous grant from The New York State Music Fund, established by the New York State Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.

Support for Still Life with Commentator: An Oratorio is provided by Multi-Arts Production Fund.

BAM thanks its many donors and sponsors, including: New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; The New York City Council; Brooklyn Delegation of the New York City Council; Brooklyn Delegation of the U.S. House of Representatives; Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz; New York State Council on the Arts; National Endowment for the Arts; New York State Assembly Brooklyn Delegation; The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation; Estate of Richard B. Fisher; New York State Music Fund; The Starr Foundation; JPMorgan Chase; Carnegie Corporation of New York; The Ford Foundation; The Shubert Foundation, Inc.; Time Warner Inc.; The Kovner Foundation; The Florence Gould Foundation; The Howard Gilman Foundation; The SHS Foundation; Skirball Foundation; and The Isak and Rose Weinman Foundation, Inc. New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge is the official hotel for the Next Wave Festival. Yamaha is the official piano for BAM. R/GA is the sponsor for BAM.org.

The world premiere of Still Life with Commentator was made possible with generous leadership support from Carolina Performing Arts at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Still Life with Commentator was co-commissioned by BAM for its 2006 Next Wave Festival with support from The Multi-Arts Production Fund, a program of Creative Capital supported by the Rockefeller Foundation. The work was underwritten by the American Composers Forum with funds provided by the Jerome Foundation. The European premiere was made possible with generous support from Kontracom Festival Salzburg.

more… Still Life 4

General Information

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, BAM Rose Cinemas, BAMcafé, and Shakespeare & Co. BAMshop are located in the Peter Jay Sharp building at 30 Lafayette Avenue (between St Felix Street and Ashland Place) in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn. BAM Harvey Theater is located two blocks from the main building at 651 Fulton Street (between Ashland and Rockwell Places). BAM Rose Cinemas is Brooklyn’s only movie house dedicated to first-run independent and foreign film and repertory programming. BAMcafé, operated by Great Performances, is open for dining 5pm until curtain prior to Howard Gilman Opera House Monday-Saturday evening performances; and two hours prior to weekend matinee and Sunday evening Howard Gilman Opera House performances. BAMcafé also features an eclectic mix of spoken word and live music for BAMcafé Live nights on Friday and Saturday with a special BAMcafé Live! menu available starting at 8:30pm. A $26 three-course dinner at BAMcafé is available Fri-Sat for BAM Rose Cinemas ticket holders (day of screening only).

Subway: 2, 3, 4, 5, Q, B to Atlantic Avenue; D, M, N, R to Pacific Street; G to Fulton Street; C to Lafayette Avenue Train: Long Island Railroad to Flatbush Avenue Bus: B25, B26, B41, B45, B52, B63, B67 all stop within three blocks of BAM Car: Commercial parking lots are located adjacent to BAM

For ticket and BAMbus information, call BAM Ticket Services at 718.636.4100, or visit www.BAM.org

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