Miller Theatre At Columbia Univ Opens Season With 'The Blue Rider In Performance' In Conjunction With Kandinsky At The Guggenheim 9/18

MILLER THEATRE AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY opens its 2009-2010 season with The Blue Rider In Performance, Co-produced with Works & Process at the Guggenheim · Mary Sharp Cronson, producer. In conjunction with Kandinsky, on view at the Guggenheim Museum starting September 18.

Miller Theatre re-animates a lightning rod moment in cultural history using music, light, and dance to evoke Kandinsky's revolutionary Blue Rider Almanac of 1912

Wednesday, September 23, 8:00PM, Friday, September 25, 8:00PM

Tickets: $35 · Students: $21

From Miller Theatre's Director Melissa Smey:
"I am thrilled to once again be working with Works and Process to open Miller's season. The publication of The Blue Rider Almanac was a seminal event in the early Modern avant-garde, and Sarah Rothenberg has crafted a stellar evening of music, dance, and multimedia that will transport us back to this exciting moment in history."

Opening Night THE BLUE RIDER IN PERFORMANCE

Wednesday, September 23, 8:00PM
Friday, September 25, 8:00PM

The Blue Rider In Performance is a world premiere event that explores the dynamic interaction of music, light, and visual imagery using materials from Vasily Kandinsky's seminal Blue Rider Almanac of 1912. Rooted in Kandinsky's connections to artists in both Russia and Germany, the Blue Rider Almanac brought together art, music, and writing from avant-garde movements across Europe, capturing a short-lived moment of international experimentalism that was abruptly halted by the outbreak of World War I. Pianist Sarah Rothenberg and soprano Susan Narucki perform music from the era by such composers as Scriabin, Webern, and Berg under a rich blanket of light and projection; world premiere choreography by Karole Armitage further illuminates Arnold Schoenberg's ground-breaking Second String Quartet.

ARTISTS: Sarah Rothenberg, concept and direction
Marcus Doshi, lighting and set design
Sven Ortel, projection design

Brentano String Quartet
Susan Narucki, soprano
Sarah Rothenberg, piano

special guest choreographer Karole Armitage with dancers from Armitage Gone! Dance

PROGRAM:
Arnold Schoenberg: Erwartung (Expectation), Op. 2 (1899)
Drei Klavierstucke (Three Piano Pieces), Op. 11 (1909)
String Quartet in F-sharp minor, Op. 10, No. 2 (1907-08)

Thomas de Hartmann: Three Songs on Anna Akhmatova, Op. 17

Arthur Lourié: Quatre Poèmes (Four Poems), Op. 10, No. 1, "Spleen" (1912)
Quatre Poèmes (Four Poems), Op. 10, No. 3, "Autoportrait" (1912)

Anton Webern: Eingang (Entrance), Op. 4, No. 1 (1908-09)
Ihr Tratet zu dem herde (You reached the hearth), Op. 4, No. 5 (1908-1909)

Alban Berg: Dem Schmerz sein Recht (Giving Pain its Due), Op. 2, No. 1 (1909-10)
Warm die Lufte (from The Ardent Lover) Op. 2, No. 4 (1909-1910)

Alexander Scriabin: Vers la flamme (Toward the Flame), Op. 72 (1914)

Sarah Rothenberg has one of the most distinguished and creative careers of her generation. Recognized internationally for her innovative programs linking music to literature and the visual arts, performances include Great Performers at Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Barbican Centre, Gilmore Keyboard Festival, and many others. A three-time winner of the Chamber Music America-ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, she also received a unique "Special Commendation for Outstanding Programming Concepts" from CMA in 1999 for her work as artistic director of Da Camera of Houston. Formerly founding co-artistic director of the Bard Music Festival, she has been a fellow of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School and artist-in-residence at the Cynthia Mitchell Center for Collaborative Arts at University of Houston. She studied at The Curtis Institute of Music, The Juilliard School, and in Paris with Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen. She received the prestigious Medal of Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters from the French government in 2000.

Marcus Doshi designs scenery and lighting for theater, opera, and dance, as well as collaborating with artists and architects on an array of non-performance ventures. Recent projects include scenery and lighting for the Khmer Rock Opera's production of Where Elephants Weep in Cambodia and for Der Kaiser Von Atlantis for the Greenwich Music Festival, as well as lighting for Aida for the Baltimore Opera, Elektra for Seattle Opera, Othello and Hamlet for Theatre for a New Audience, and First Breeze of Summer at Signature Theatre. As a company member of Moving Theater he has participated in the creation of Without, Mass Particle No. 1, ImPermanent Collection, and Last Dances. Doshi also works extensively with the Khmer Arts Ensemble, under the artistic direction of Sophiline Cheam Shapiro. He is a recipient of the Theater Communications Group/National Endowment for the Arts 2003-2005 Career Development Program grant, was awarded a 2008 AUDELCO award, and was nominated for the 2009 Drama Desk Best Lighting Design award.

Sven Ortel works internationally designing projections and video imagery for theater, opera, dance, musicals, movies, advertisements, and music videos. Professional experience in Germany and the study of theater lighting design in London have led Ortel to develop a keen interest in digital technologies and their potential for the stage. Since 2001 he has been an associate of mesmer, a collective that explores the use of imagery and projection in the live arts. He has worked with many artists from directors Michael Blakemore, Matthias Hartman, Jonathan Kent, Deborah Warner, and Francesca Zambello to choreographer Helgi Tomasson, conductor Valery Gergiev, and set designer George Tsypin. Recent projects include Deuce, directed by Michael Blakemore on Broadway; Complicité's A Disappearing Number directed by Simon McBurney; and Swan Lake at the San Francisco Ballet. In addition to The Blue Rider In Performance, he is working on the re-staging of the Kirov Ring Cycle due to premiere in St. Petersburg, Russia and in London, England.

Brentano String Quartet (Mark Steinberg and Serena Canin, violin; Misha Amory, viola; Nina Lee, cello) has appeared throughout the world to popular and critical acclaim. Within a few years of its formation, the Quartet garnered the first Cleveland Quartet Award and the Naumburg Chamber Music Award; and in 1996 the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center invited them to be the inaugural members of Chamber Music Society Two program. The Quartet had its first European tour in 1997. In recent seasons the Quartet has appeared all over the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan, and Australia. It has performed at Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall in New York; the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.; the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam; and the Sydney Opera House. In addition to performing the entire two-century range of the standard repertoire, Brentano has an interest in both very old and very new music. The Quartet is named for Antonie Brentano, whom many scholars consider to be Beethoven's "Immortal Beloved," the intended recipient of his famous love confession.

Soprano Susan Narucki has enjoyed extraordinary collaborations and has earned recognition as a champion of the music of our time. Her recent appearances include works of Elliott Carter with James Levine and MET Chamber Ensemble at Carnegie Hall, Stravinsky's Les Noces with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Vivier's Trois Airs with Reinbert de Leeuw and the Asko/Schoenberg Ensemble. Her portrayal of "Mama" in Carter's What Next? at Miller Theatre was praised by The New York Times as "compelling and luminous." Narucki is a soloist with major orchestras and with contemporary music ensembles across the globe. Also a distinguished chamber musician, she has been a guest with the Brentano String Quartet, the Orion String Quartet, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and at Ojai, Aspen, Yellow Barn, Santa Fe, and Norfolk Chamber Music Festivals. Narucki earned Grammy and Cannes awards for works of George Crumb and a Grammy nomination for her recording of Elliott Carter's Tempo e Tempi.

Karole Armitage began her career in 1973 as a member of the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève. From 1976-1981 she was a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Throughout the 1980s she led her own New York-based dance company. In 1984, Mikhail Baryshnikov invited her to create a work for American Ballet Theatre. In 1987, Rudolph Nureyev asked her to create her fourth dance for the Paris Opera Ballet. In 1990, Armitage was appointed director of MaggioDanza in Florence, Italy, where from 1995 to 1998 she supervised 45 dancers in the classical repertoire and created her own work. From 1999 to 2002 she was the resident choreographer of the Ballet de Lorraine in France. In 2004, she returned to New York when The Joyce Theater invited her to create a new ballet. Armitage Gone! Dance was launched in 2005. Armitage has received many honors including France's highest arts award, the Medal of Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters, the Grand Prix Roscigno Danza from Italy, and a Guggenheim Fellowship for choreography.

SPECIAL EVENT: FREE PANEL DISCUSSION
Visual Sounds: Music and Art in Kandinsky's Blue Rider
Thursday, September 24, 7:00PM at Miller Theatre

In conjunction with The Blue Rider In Performance, Miller Theatre and Columbia University School of the Arts are pleased to host a free panel discussion featuring a multi-disciplinary group of Kandinsky experts. Moderated by Sarah Rothenberg, the panelists include Columbia University Professors Noam Elcott (Department of Art History and Archeology) and Walter Frisch (Department of Music), as well as Curator of Collections and Exhibitions at the Guggenheim Museum, Tracey Bashkoff.

FREE - NO TICKETS REQUIRED

Columbia University's Miller Theatre is located north of the Main Campus Gate at 116th St. & Broadway on the ground floor of Dodge Hall.

For tickets, the public should call the Miller Theatre Box Office at 212/854-7799, M-F, 12-6 pm.

Tickets can also be purchased online at www.millertheatre.com.

 

Test and expand your Broadway knowledge with our new game - The Broadway Match-Up! How well do you know your Broadway casting trivia?	Play the Daily Game, explore current shows, and delve into past decades like the 2000s, 80s, and the Golden Age. Challenge your friends and see where you rank!
How well do you know your Tony Awards history? Take our never-ending quiz of nominations and winner history and challenge your friends.	Can you beat your friends? Play today’s daily Broadway word game, featuring a new theatrically inspired word or phrase every day!