NYFOS Presents PHIL KLINE & FRIENDS Tonight

On Tuesday, May 3 at 7:00pm, the New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) closes its 2010-11 season with NYFOS Next: PHIL KLINE & FRIENDS, as part of The Movado Hour at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. Kline, who hosts the evening, has curated an hour of songs by such diverse talents as David Lang, Elliott Sharp, Corey Dargel, and Meredith Monk. All composers are expected to attend.

NYFOS Next is the latest innovation from NYFOS, focusing on contemporary songs that defy easy categorization and redefine the boundaries of the song genre. The two-part mini-series bookends NYFOS's popular thematic series at Merkin Hall. NYFOS Next's debut show featured Gabriel Kahane & Friends.

Phil Kline and Friends features three generations of New York musical pioneers ranging from the legendary and inimitable Meredith Monk, one of the true founders of the Downtown aesthetic, to Brooklyn muse Corey Dargel, whose songs are at once mirthful and macabre. In between are Bang on a Can co-founder and Pulitzer Prize winner David Lang, whose elegant post-minimalism both rocks and elevates; guitar improv genius and composer Elliott Sharp, who perhaps represents the very soul of Downtown; and Phil Kline, whose deceptively accessible music manages to subvert tradition even while honoring it.

A few highlights of the May 3 program include Meredith Monk's wordless Prayer; Corey Dargel's catalog of medical anomalies from his song cycle about voluntary amputation, Removable Parts; David Lang's Old Testament groove, My Enemy's Ox; and Kline's devastating setting of Hunter S. Thompson's suicide note, Football Season is Over.

NYFOS Next is presented by The Movado Hour, a series of free hour-long concerts that take place in an intimate, salon-like setting. It is one of three ground-breaking initiatives for NYFOS in its 23rd season, along with Bastianello / Lucrezia, a 2-disc CD release on Bridge Records featuring the two operas NYFOS commissioned from John Musto and William Bolcom; and No Song is Safe From Us, a nationally syndicated radio series produced by Chicago's famed WFMT and hosted by Frederica von Stade, which debuted in January 2011.

Phil Kline is a strikingly original composer who has broken new ground in many genres and contexts. Whether it's writing experimental electronic music (Unsilent Night), creating sound installations (World on a String), or composing in such traditional forms as song (Zippo Songs), choral (John the Revelator), theater (Locus Solus), and chamber music (The Blue Room), Kline is a musical tightrope walker working without a net.

The Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC) is a thriving creative laboratory and performance space for artists from around the world. BAC's activities encompass a robust residency program augmented by a range of professional services, including commissions of new work, as well as the presentation of performances by artists of excellence at varying stages of their careers. In tandem with its commitment to supporting artists, BAC is dedicated to building audiences for the arts by presenting contemporary, innovative work at affordable ticket prices. The Movado Hour is BAC's highly popular series of hour-long chamber music concerts presented in an salon setting. Curated by concert pianist and BAC Artistic Administrator, Pedja Muzijevic, and underwritten by Movado, the series takes chamber music back to its roots by providing music lovers with the opportunity to enjoy concerts in a small, intimate setting with the informal atmosphere of a salon. Programs are designed to juxtapose different styles and languages of music and invite audiences to experience both the familiar and unfamiliar. For more information, please visit www.bacnyc.org.

Admission to Movado Hour concerts is free of charge. Reservations are required and may be made April 26, one week prior to the concert date: 212-868-4444 or www.smarttix.com. Tickets are available on a first-come-first-served basis. There is a two-ticket limit per customer. Doors open at 6:00PM.

Program for NYFOS Next: Phil Kline and Friends on May 3, 2011

David Lang
I Had No Reason (from The Difficulty of Crossing a Field) for soprano and violin; text by Ambrose Bierce (New York premiere)
I Want to Live (from Shelter) for three sopranos; text by David Lang
I Found My Enemy's Ox (from Lost Objects) for two altos and piano, 3 hands; text by Deborah Artman

Meredith Monk
Prayer II (from The Politics of Quiet) for soprano and piano; wordless text

Corey Dargel
Toes
Hooked for Life
Sincerely Yours
(all from Removable Parts: songs about love and voluntary amputation and for voice and piano); texts by Corey Dargel

Elliott Sharp
No Time Like the Stranger for soprano, violin, cello, piano; text by Elliott Sharp

Phil Kline
The Snow Fell for bass, violin, piano, cello; text by David Shapiro
A Strange World for bass, violin, piano, cello; text by Hunter S. Thompson (world premiere)
Football Season is Over for bass, violin, cello and piano; text by Hunter S. Thompson
The Carburetor at Venice for three sopranos, bass, violin, cello and piano; text by David Shapiro (world premiere)

Performers:
Katherine Dain, soprano
Matt Boehler, bass
Corey Dargel, vocals
Ashley Bathgate, cello
Todd Reynolds, violin
Kathy Supové, piano
Two more sopranos TBA

PHIL KLINE BIO

"Magic was happening as you sat there. Here was a real original." - The New York Times

Phil Kline makes music in many genres and contexts, from experimental electronics and sound installations to songs, choral, theater, chamber and orchestral music.

Raised in Akron, Ohio, he came to New York to study English Literature at Columbia. After graduation, he joined the downtown New York arts scene: founding the rock band The Del-Byzanteens with Jim Jarmusch and James Nares, collaborating with Nan Goldin on the soundtrack to The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, and playing guitar in the notorious Glenn Branca Ensemble.

His early compositions grew out of his solo performance art and often used boombox tape players as a medium, most notably in the Christmas piece Unsilent Night, which debuted in the streets of Greenwich Village in 1992 and is now performed annually in cities around the world.

Other compositions include Zippo Songs, a song cycle based on poems Vietnam vets inscribed on their Zippo lighters, The Blue Room and Other Stories, written for string quartet Ethel, and Exquisite Corpses, commissioned by the Bang on a Can All-Stars.

More recent works include the choral Mass John the Revelator, written for vocal group Lionheart; a piano sonata, The Long winter, written for Sarah Cahill; and scores for three evening-length dance pieces by Wally Cardona: Everywhere, Site and Really Real. The sound installation World on a String opened the season at the Krannert Center in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, in September 2007 and SPACE for string quartet and electronics was performed by Ethel at the gala reopening of Alice Tully Hall in 2009.

2011 sees the premieres of A Dream and its Opposite, written for the La Jolla Symphony Orchestra, and Canzona a due Cuori, commissioned by the St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble. Kline is currently working on an opera, Tesla in New York, in collaboration with writer-director Jim Jarmusch. His music is available on the Cantaloupe, CRI and Starkland labels.

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