Texas Performing Arts Presents BLACKSTAR At Bass Concert Hall

Cello soloist Maya Beiser joins composer/conductor Evan Ziporyn and his Ambient Orchestra to perform Bowie Symphonic: Blackstar, a startling and soaring new version of David Bowie's entire last album Blackstar for solo cello and orchestra. Arranged for Beiser by Ziporyn, who will also conduct Ambient Orchestra, Bowie Symphonic: Blackstar has been performed to capacity audiences in Boston, Barcelona, and New York City's Central Park SummerStage. For this performance, Ambient Orchestra is joined by musicians from Boston Conservatory at Berklee.

The Boston Globe recently described internationally renowned cellist Maya Beiser as "a force of nature," and wrote of the performance of Blackstar in Boston last year, "The orchestra's approach took advantage of the rich, jazz-infused harmonic palette of 'Blackstar.' As the rest of the strings rose up in deep menace and then flitted away like shadows, Beiser's cello replaced the vocals of 'Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)' with a shivering panic. . . 'Lazarus' reached further down into the grave and further up toward the stars all at once."

The cultural influence that the late musician, iconoclast, and actor David Bowie had on millions of people cannot be overstated. The late British star, who called New York his home, recorded his final album Blackstar in secret. For both Beiser and Ziporyn, the ambitious project of reimagining the album as a concert experience, is a personal one. "To me and my generation, Bowie was a model for what it meant to be an artist or creative person. When I heard Blackstar, just days before his death, I felt right away I was hearing an extended, substantive masterpiece, music with a truly symphonic arc." Ziporyn explains. Beiser says, "David Bowie was so versatile, and he was always exploring and evolving as an artist. He never settled for the easy path. And he himself, as a person, was the totality of his art."

Maya Beiser, described by Rolling Stone as "a cello rock star," dedicates herself to creating new realms in which concert music can exist, redefining every aspect of what it means to be a cellist in the contemporary context. Arranger/conductor Evan Ziporyn's eclectic music connects the dots between contemporary classical, jazz, pop and world music. They undertook this project because, he Ziporyn says, "my musical mind was continually expanded by David Bowie. Blackstar, his final masterpiece, has a wide palette of sounds and an emotional arc that are nothing like any rock record I'd ever heard. I immediately felt that it could and should be orchestral, and that Maya was the perfect soloist to bring his 'voice' to the orchestral world."

Both founding members of the innovative Bang on a Can All-Stars, Maya Beiser and Evan Ziporyn have been collaborators since that group was founded in 1992. Their performances of Blackstar follow their work together on Beiser's Uncovered (2014), an album of re-imagined and re-contextualized classic rock masterpieces arranged by Ziporyn and recorded by Beiser, which they co-produced. The album made the top 10 on the Billboard Classical Chart. Following Beiser's performance of Uncovered, the Boston Globe raved, "this wasn't anything that should be called crossover, cello-rock, or any other portmanteau genre. It was hard rock, full stop."

Fun Facts:

• Evan Ziporyn, who spearheaded this project, is a Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Music at MIT. He also serves as Chair of Music and Theater Arts, and in 2012 was appointed inaugural Director of MIT's Center for Art, Science & Technology.
• Three weeks after Bowie's death, Ziporyn assembled an 80-person orchestra to play two Philip Glass symphonies that reference the work of Bowie.
• The Blackstar project premiered at MIT's Kresge Auditorium and featured renowned cellist, Maya Beiser, who will also perform with the orchestra at Texas Performing Arts.
• David Bowie released Blackstar on his 69th birthday. He died two days later.
• At the 59th Annual Grammy Awards, Blackstar won awards for Best Alternative Music Album; Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical; Best Recording Package, and the title single won Best Rock Performance, and Best Rock Song.

For more information on this performance, please visit: https://texasperformingarts.org/season/blackstar-bass-concert-hall-2018

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