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Morton Subotnick’s Wordless Opera Lucy: Song and Dance Premieres at the Library of Congress

Sep. 24, 2012

Morton Subotnick’s Wordless Opera <em>Lucy: Song and Dance</em> Premieres at the Library of Congress

In its 87th concert season, the Library of Congress salutes iconic American voices, past and present, with a focus on American contemporary composition throughout the year. In a season that features Nico Muhly, Chaya Czernowin, Woody Guthrie, John Philip Sousa, John Cage and others, a world premiere from Morton Subotnick on October 30 stands as an early season highlight. Lucy: Song and Dance, an opera without words, is the composer’s new work for voice and electronics that marks a continuation of Subotnick's insatiable thirst for redefining musical expression, achieved here through the deconstructing of music and dance into their most primal elements. Composed for voice, buchla synthesizer and electronics, and set against an evocative lighting and video design by Lillevan, Lucy uses only the basic elements of pitch and rhythm manipulated to create a completely distinct and engrossing sound environment. The composer explains:

Throughout our evolution, pitch gestures were an important form of direct communication of emotion and must have been empathically understood. These early utterances, the cries of grief, the murmurs of tenderness and the roars of outrage, might well have been the beginnings of what we now call song.

Pitch gesturing and timing movement-synchrony have different roots in our evolution. Used together they have enabled us to create the wonder of the arts we call music and dance. The earliest forms of gestural/emotional expression and empathy and the overwhelming attraction to moving with pulsed precision, alone and in groups or crowds, have been and remain key ingredients in our ‘humanness’.

Lucy unfolds as a dream-like odyssey of emotional states in a transforming landscape of sound and image through nine overlapping scenes of pitch and rhythm gestures. The performance at the Library of Congress features vocalist Joan La Barbara, Morton Subotnick manning the electronics and keyboard, and live video animation by Lillevan. The opera is performed in concert on October 30 and will be developed into a fully staged performances piece over the coming year. The evening also includes a performance of Subotnick's Trembling featuring violinist Todd Reynolds and pianist Jenny Lin.

Visit www.schott-music.com to learn more Morton Subotnick’s music.

Morton Subotnick
Lucy-Song and Dance (2012)
for voice and live electronics
ca. 40'

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