Ekmeles and maya + rouvelle present

In the Sky I am Walking

Livestreamed from Brooklyn, NY July 18, 2020 at 8PM

Ekmeles Charlotte Mundy, soprano Elisa Sutherland, mezzo-soprano

Steve Beck, piano

maya + rouvelle Lili Maya and James Rouvelle, video art

Charles Mueller, technical assistance

This performance is free to all, and will be online for one week following the live stream. We would also like to call your attention to the Navajo Nation COVID19 Relief Fund: www.navajo.fund

We would like to acknowledge that Ekmeles is perform- ing today on unceded land of the Lenape people, and to pay respect to elders, both past and present. Program

Asdzą́ą́ Nadleehé / Yoołgai Asdzą́ą́ (2016) Raven Chacon (b. 1977)

Am Himmel wandre ich (1972) (1928-2007) Notes and Texts Asdzą́ą́ Nadleehé / Yoołgai Asdzą́ą́ Changing Woman / White Shell Woman

Nááyéé’ – monster Déélgeed – The Horned Monster Nináháleeh – Male Monster Bird Jóhonáá’éí’ – The Sun

Soprano: First Woman was alone with only First Man and four other people who survived. And there was nothing left to do but die or try to survive. And of these four, two were children, were siblings, and so while there was a future for them, there would be no future from them. Mezzo: First Man was alone with only First Woman and four other people who survived. And there was nothing left to do but die or try to survive. And of these four there was an old man and there was an old woman, and while they’d lived long lives themselves, it ended there.

Nááyéé.

Nothing will go wrong, I will surround myself in song.

Soprano: And then first man found a turquoise figurine which grew into a woman. My sister I am lonely, and I wonder about the sun. So I will open my legs and watch the sun as he goes from East to West. Mezzo: And then first man found a white shell figurine which grew into a woman. Why should we remain here saying nothing, doing nothing, seeing no one and waiting. So I will go down into the rocks and let the waterfall fall down on me.

And twins were born. / Find our father.

Jóhonáá’éí’.

Father give us your weapons.

Soprano: A piece of lung he brings for me; our people are restored. A piece of wing he brings for me; my people are restored. A lock of hair he brings for me; his people are restored. The monster’s eyes he brings for me; our people are restored. Mezzo: Déégeed he brings for me; our people are restored. Nináháleeh he brings for me; my people are restored. Nááyéé’ he brings for me; his people are restored. Nááyéé’ he brings for me; our people are restored. Am Himmel wandre ich Am Himmel wandre ich is part of a larger work by Stockhausen, Alphabet für Liège. The fundamental idea underlying Alphabet is the notion that sound vibra- tions can affect both living beings and inanimate matter. Stockhausen explained his purpose in this piece was to show “how sound waves always change the mol- ecules, even the atoms of a being who listens to music, making them vibrate. And that is what we want to make visible, because most people only believe what they see.” Am Himmel wandre ich is the only part of Alphabet capable of performance in- dependent of the larger work, and the only part to have been published. The work consists of twelve scenes performed by two singers. Each scene consits of a Na- tive American song, taken from a book titled American Indian Prose and Poetry, edited by Margaret Astrov. The different poems, aphorisms or prayers come from the following tribes: Chippewa, Pawnee, Nootka, Teton Sioux, Ayacucho, Aztec. The scenes follow one another without interruption. The first song is intoned on a single note, C, the next song adds a second note to the first, the F# above, the third adds the G a semitone higher still, the fourth descends to E, and so on, until reaching a twelve-tone row in the final song, but with the notes in fixed registers.

1. DREAM SONG (Chippewa)

In the sky I am walking, A Bird I accompany.

2. LOVE SONG (Chippewa)

Oh I am thinking Oh I am thinking I have found my lover Oh I think it is so!

3. WAR SONG (Pawnee)

Let us see, is this real, Let us see, is this real, This life I am living? Ye Gods, who dwell everywhere, Let us see, is this real, This life I am Living?

4. LOVE SONG (Nootka)

No matter how hard I try to forget you, you always come back to my mind, and when you hear me singing you may know I am weeping for you.

5. SONG sung over a dying person (Chippewa)

You are a spirit, I am making you a spirit, In the place where I sit I am making you a spirit.

6. OPENING PRAYER OF THE SUN DANCE (Teton Sioux)

Grandfather! A voice I am going to send, Hear me! All over the universe A voice I am going to send, Hear me, Grandfather! I will live! I have said it. 7. PERUVIAN DANCE SONG (Ayacucho)

Wake up, woman, Rise up, woman, In the middle of the street, A dog howls. May the death arrive – May the dance arrive – Comes the dance You must dance, Comes the death You can’t help it! Ah! what a chill, Ah! what a wind....

8. PLAINT AGAINST THE FOG (Nootka)

Don’t you ever, You up in the sky, Don’t you ever get tired Of having the clouds between you and us?

9. A SONG BY NEZAHUALCOYOTL (Aztec)

I am like the quetzal bird, I am created in the one and only god; I sing sweet songs among the flowers; I chant songs and rejoice in my heart.

10. SONG TO BRING FAIR WEATHER (Nootka)

You, whose day it is, make it beautiful. Get out your rainbow colors, So it will be beautiful. 11. LOVE SONG (Aztec)

I know not whether thou hast been absent: I lie down with thee, I rise up with thee, In my dreams it is thou moving within my heart.

If my eardrops tremble in my ears, I know it is thou moving within my heart.

12. SONG OF A MAN WHO RECEIVED A VISION (Teton Sioux)

Friends, behold! Sacred I have been made. Friends, behold! In a sacred manner I have been influenced At the gathering of the clouds. Sacred I have been made, Friends, behold! Sacred I have been made.

Biographies

Raven Chacon is a composer, performer and installation artist from Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation. As a artist, collaborator, or with Postcommodity, Chacon has exhibited or performed at Whitney Biennial, documenta 14, RED- CAT, Musée d’art Contemporain de Montréal, San Francisco Festival, Chaco Canyon, Ende Tymes Festival, 18th Biennale of Sydney, and The Kennedy Center. Every year, he teaches 20 students to write string quartets for the Native American Composer Apprenticeship Project (NACAP). He is the recipient of the United States Artists fellowship in Music, The Creative Capital award in Visual Arts, The Native Arts and Cultures Foundation artist fellowship, and the American Academy’s Berlin Prize for Music Composition. He lives in Albuquerque, NM. Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928–2007) composed 376 individually performable works. He started composing in the early 1950s. Stockhausen’s entire oeuvre can be classified as “Spiritual Music”; this becomes more and more evident not only in the compositions with spiritual texts, but also in the other works of “Overtone Music”, “”, “Mantric Music”, reaching “Cosmic Music” such as (TUNING), (FROM THE SEVEN DAYS), , STERNKLANG (STAR SOUND), (LIGHT), and (SOUND).

At nearly all world premières and in innumerable exemplary performances and recordings of his works world-wide, Stockhausen either personally conducted, or performed in or directed the performance as sound projectionist.

In addition to numerous guest professorships in Switzerland, the United States, Finland, Holland, and Denmark, Stockhausen was appointed Professor for Com- position at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne in 1971. In 1996 he was award- ed an honorary doctorate from the Freie Unversität Berlin, and in 2004 received an honorary doctorate from the Queen’s University in Belfast. He is a member of 12 international Academies for the Arts and Sciences, was named Honor- ary Citizen of Kuerten in 1988, became Commandeur dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, received many gramophone prizes and, among other honours, the Siemens Music Prize, the UNESCO Picasso Medal, the Cologne Culture Prize and, the Polar Music Prize with the laudation: “Karlheinz Stockhausen is being awarded the Polar Music Prize for 2001 for a career as a composer that has been characterized by impeccable integrity and never-ceasing creativity, and for hav- ing stood at the fore front of musical development for fifty years.”

[εk’mεlεs] \ek’meles\ 1. In Ancient Greek music theory, tones of indefinite pitch and intervals with com- plex ratios, tones “not appropriate for musical usage.” 2. A “brilliant young ... defining a fresh and virtuosic American sound” - The New Yorker

Ekmeles is a vocal ensemble dedicated to the performance of new and rarely-heard works, and gems of the historical avant garde. New York is home to a vibrant in- strumental New Music scene, with a relative paucity of vocal music. Ekmeles was founded to fill the gap by presenting new a cappella repertoire for solo voices, and by collaborating with these instrumental ensembles.

Director Jeffrey Gavett brings a hybrid vision to the group: he is an accomplished ensemble singer and performer of new works, and holds degrees from Westmin- ster Choir College and Manhattan School of Music’s Contemporary Performance Program. He has assembled a virtuoso group of colleagues who bring their own diverse backgrounds to bear on the unique challenges of this essential and ne- glected repertoire. Soprano Charlotte Mundy specializes in music that is new, daring and sublime. She has been called a”daredevil with an unbreakable spine” (SF Classical Voice). Recent performances include a set of music for voice and electronics present- ed by New York Festival of Song, described as “an oasis of radiant beauty” by the New York Times; ’s Songbook and Julius Eastman’s Macle with SEM ensemble in Poland and NYC; Xenakis’ Akanthos with Ensemble Échappé in NYC; and Henning Christiansen’s -era opera Dejligt Vejr i Dag with Apartment House in Copenhagen. She acted and sang in A Star Has Burnt My Eye at the BAM Next Wave Festival and danced while singing the music of Morton Feldman and Kaija Saariaho with New Chamber Ballet. She has given critically acclaimed performances of Pierrot Lunaire, Le Marteau sans Maitre and Three Voices. Mundy “slays the thorniest material like it’s nothing” (WQXR) with TAK ensemble at venues such as the Library of Congress, Stanford University and the Look and Listen festival; she sings stratospheric microtonal lines with Ekmeles vocal ensemble at venues including The Metropolitan Museum and The Kitchen; she also performs regularly with the Brooklyn Art Song Society, including Messi- aen’s Poemes Pour Mí, Saariaho’s Quatre Instants, and the world premiere of Kurt Rohde’s It Wasn’t a Dream. She was awarded the 2019 Jan DeGaetani prize for contemporary song performance from the Joy in Singing Competition.

Elisa Sutherland is a mezzo-soprano known for her detailed, stylistic interpre- tations of both early and new music. This upcoming season, she will perform with Philadelphia’s The Crossing, New York ensembles Ekmeles and TENET Vocal Artists, Ballet, Roomful of Teeth, Cleveland’s Apollo’s Fire, Miami’s Seraphic Fire, and her own early and new music sextet, Variant 6.

Elisa has performed as a soloist with TENET Vocal Artists, Apollo’s Fire, Amer- ican Bach Soloists, and Quicksilver Baroque, singing Baroque masterworks such as Bach’s Mass in b minor, Handel’s Messiah, and Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri. In the realm of contemporary music, she has premiered works for voice and chamber orchestra for university and professional ensembles. Elisa has a special love for art song, and has sung with LyricFest, Philadelphia’s premiere art song concert series, and the Brooklyn Art Song Society.

In addition to winning the Philadelphia District of the Metropolitan Opera Auditions in 2015, Elisa is the 2014 winner of the Lynne Harvey Cooper Award, and was the first-place winner of the inaugural Handel Aria Competition at the Madison Early Music Festival in 2013. Recent opera roles include Hera in Chris Cerrone’s All Wounds Bleed, Ensemble in Michael Gordon’s Acquanetta with the Prototype Festival, Dido in Dido and Aeneas, Dorabella in Cosi fan tutte, and Ottavia in L’incoronazione di Poppea, . Elisa is also remembered for her Blazing Saddles - Madeline Kahn impression in a production of Die Fledermaus. Pianist Steven Beck continues to gather acclaim for his performances and recordings. Recent career highlights include performances of Beethoven’s variations and bagatelles at Bargemusic, where he first performed the Beethoven sonata cycle.

Steven Beck is an experienced performer of new music, having worked with , , , Charles Wuorinen, George Crumb, George Perle, and Fred Lerdahl, and performed with ensembles such as Speculum Musicae and the New York New Music Ensemble. He is a member of the Da Capo Chamber Players, the Knights, and the Talea Ensemble. He is also a member of Quattro Mani, a piano duo specializing in contemporary music. As an orchestral musician he has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, the New York City Ballet Orchestra, Orpheus, the Mariinsky Orchestra and many others.

Mr. Beck’s discography includes ’s third piano concerto (for Bridge Records) and a recording of Elliott Carter’s “Double Concerto” on Alba- ny Records. He is a Steinway Artist.

Visual artist duo maya + rouvelle is a collaboration between Lili Maya and James Rouvelle that began in 2009 in New York. They work in a variety of tradi- tional and emerging media and forms, including installation, performance, object making, video and XR/VR. Their current body of work explores the presence of the ancient and eternal within the contemporary and ephemeral. They frequent- ly collaborate on productions for the stage, concert hall, and, recently, social distancing. Their works have been shown nationally and internationally. Recent venues include the Cooper-Hewitt in New York, Palais de Tokyo in Paris, and the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Shanghai. Ekmeles’s 2019-2020 season is made possible with funds from the Amphion Foundation, The Fund for Music, The Alice M. Ditson Fund, The Fritz Reiner Center for Contemporary Music, and the generosity of private donors.

This program is made possible in part with public funds from Creative Engagement, supported by New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and administered by LMCC; and funding from the Upper Manhattan Em- powerment Zone Development Corporation and administered by LMCC.