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INFORMATION FOR ADVERTISERS Send inquiries to 21ST-CENTURY MUSIC, P.O. Box 2842, San Anselmo, CA 94960. e-mail: [email protected]. 21ST CENTURY MUSIC February 2011 Volume 18, Number 2 PHILIP GEORGE Mikel Rouse 1 CHRONICLE Of December 2010 4 RECORDINGS 11 ILLUSTRATIONS i, 3 Mikel Rouse 10 Rufus Wainwright 12 Rys Chatham Editorial Staff Mark Alburger EDITOR-PUBLISHER Harriet March Page ASSOCIATE EDITOR Patti Noel Deuter ASSISTANT EDITOR Erling Wold WEBMASTER Alexis Alrich Adam Broner Katherine Buono Ken Bullock A.J. Churchill David Cleary Jeff Dunn Phillip George Elliot Harmon Brian Holmes Jeff Kaliss John Lane Michael McDonagh Tom Moore William Rowland Lisa Scola Prosek Andrew Shapiro CORRESPONDENTS Mikel Rouse PHILLIP GEORGE Mikel Rouse (b. Michael Rouse, 1/26/57, Saint Other albums of the 80's included Etudes (1980), Louis, MI) writes in a post-minimal style that is Colorado Suite (1984), Quorum (1984), Set The idiomatically indebted to popular music, utilizing Timer (1985), Social Responsibility (1987), and complex rhythmic techniques derived from world Against All Flags (1988). Rouse's association with music, the avant-garde, and minimalism. Ben Neill and Kyle Gann in the early 1990's led to the recognition of a new rhythmic complexity in The son of a Missouri state trooper, Rouse grew up minimalist-based music that came to be referred to in Poplar Bluff, in the state's bootheel region. Early as totalism. in life, he decided to change the spelling of his first name to "Mikel," more accurately representing the Frustrated by the lack of institutional support for pronunciation. Downtown music, Rouse made an ambitious bid for composer self-sufficiency, premiering/directing a He graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute and one-man opera Failing Kansas, based on the same the Conservatory of Music at the University of story as Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, in 1995. Missouri at Kansas City. Rouse's band Tirez Tirez One of the basic rhythms of the work is a five-beat relocated to New York City in 1979 and continued isorhythm against which either harmony or drum performing until 1987. patterns often reinforce a four- or eight- cycle. About this time, he directed the film Roundtable Conceived as the first of a trilogy of operas, Failing (1979), and, over the years has served likewise for led to an emerging art form which to composer has The Glass Bead Game (1982), A Walk in the characterized as "counterpoetry," involving the use Woods (1985), Funding (2001), The End Of of multiple unpitched voices in counterpoint. Often Cinematics (2002), and Music For Minorities individual lines performed by separate characters or (2004). groups are set to phrases of differing lengths (such as 9 and 10 beats) and characteristically played over Upon moving to New York, Rouse absorbed a background of 4/4. Other works to employ this African rhythmic techniques from A. M. Jones's technique include Autorequiem (1994) for strings, Studies in African Music, took up other instruction percussion and voices; and the CD Living Inside in world music, and studied Schillinger System with Design (1994), a collection of extended spoken Jerome Walman, one of the few "Certified" songs instructors in America; all of these influences came to inform his music. In 1996 Rouse premiered and directed the technologically innovative Dennis Cleveland at The In addition to Tirez Tirez he formed a new Kitchen, starring himself and based on a talk show ensemble, Mikel Rouse Broken Consort, to work format, with some of the singers/actors spread out out his new rhythmic language in the context of among the audience. With a dense libretto drawn rock-based instrumentation, making him one of the from John Ralston Saul's Voltaire's Bastards, the first composers to notate intricate music in such a work was hailed by The Village Voice as "the most context. Recordings with the latter ensemble exciting and innovative new opera since [Philip include Jade Tiger (1984), A Walk In The Woods Glass's] Einstein on the Beach." (1985), A Lincoln Portrait (1988), and Soul Menu (1993). Additional performances included The Eclectic The third opera in his trilogy, The End Of Orange Festival in Costa Mesa, CA (1999); the Cinematics premiered in Fall 2005, through Perth International Arts Festival, Western Australia collaboration with the Emerging Technologies (2000); the Krannert Center for the Performing department of the National Center for Arts, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois (2001, where the Supercomputing Technologies and the Krannert production was redesigned with assistance from the Center for the Performing Arts at the University of University of Illinois), and Lincoln Center (2002). Illinois at Urbana. The Australian Broadcasting Company filmed a documentary of the piece, which aired in 2001. A new piece commissioned by The Merce 1999 found Rouse completing Return, a collection Cunningham Dance Company, the John Cage Trust of songs built around samples from his 1985 Book and Betty Freeman premiered at The Joyce Theater, One for string quartet. Also that year, the composer New York, in October 2006. The piece was scored completed the music for the multimedia for multiple iPods set to "shuffle" so that each Cameraworld, collaborating with video artist Cliff audience member had a different realization of the Baldwin. score. The music for the piece, International Cloud Atlas, was released exclusively on iTunes and was The following season, Rouse completed the score available for download prior to the premiere. In and film, tellingly entitled Funding, a full-length addition to this work, Rouse also released House Of feature DVD/film/chamber orchestra piece, as well Fans and Love At Twenty. as conceiving and producing the first commercial CDROM release of prepared piano samples from Works John Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes. Etudes (1981), ten songs In 2001 the John Cage Trust commissioned Rouse to realize the score for Cage’s radio-play-turned- Balboa (1981), video opera theatrical-production James Joyce, Marcel Duchamp, Erik Satie: An Alphabet. Rouse Quartet (1981), three violins, double bass completed the score at Louisiana Tech University during the beginning of a three-year Meet the Shield 81 (1982), chamber orchestra suite Composer Residency in Ruston, LA. He also played the part of James Joyce in the international 2001- Autumn in New York (1982), orchestra 2002 tour of the work, premiering at the Edinburgh International Festival and including runs at the Untitled (1982), electronics Dublin Fringe Festival, the Hebbel Theatre (Berlin), the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts Jade Tiger (1982), five pieces for chamber (University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign), Cal ensemble (Mikel Rouse Broken Consort) Performances (Berkeley), the Perth International Arts Festival, and the Eclectic Orange Festival in Glass Bead Game (1983), opera on Herman Hesse Costa Mesa. novel In 2002 he released two CDs, Cameraworld and a Story of the Year (1983), nine songs remastered Failing Kansas, and one DVD, Funding. Test Tones was completed that year and Music for Colorado Suite (1984), three pieces for violin and Minorities the next. electronics A Walk in the Woods (1984), seven-piece chamber orchestra suite Red 20 (1984), orchestra 2 Quorum (1984), electronic drum sequencer, The End of Cinematics (1997), opera premiered as Vespers by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Return (1999), a collection of songs constructed around samples from Book One (1986), a book of American Nova (1985), orchestra string quartets recorded in 1989 Funding (2001), choral piece and feature film Set the Timer / Uptight (1986), extended songs Cameraworld (2000), digital media project Book One (1986), nine string quartets incorporating surround sound, feature length film and video "for home entertainment systems of the Social Responsibility (1987), ten songs future" Lincoln Portrait (1987), suite of six pieces for Test Tones (2002), song cycle and feature film chamber ensemble (Mikel Rouse Broken Consort) combined with live interviews from New York to Louisiana Against All Flags (1988), ten songs Music for Minorities (2003), 14 songs for voice and Two Paradoxes Resolved (1989), six-piece piano guitar with live interactive video.