Goethe News

Celebrating its 15th season, the Ensemble for the Romantic Century (ERC) returns to BAM Fisher for six performances of Anna Akhmatova: The Heart is Not Made of Stone.

REDCAT, CalArts' downtown center for contemporary arts, presents the intoxicating dance-theater work Der Bau, by Isabelle Schad and Laurent Goldring, Saturday April 16 and Sunday April 17, 2016 at 8:30 p.m.

Randy Gener - the prominent U.S. theater editor, drama critic and curatorial producer - has been named South Korea's new Literature & Criticism Laureate and an International Artist-in-Residence of the Incheon Art Platform.

Carriageworks presents the world premiere of LAKE DISAPPOINTMENT over four nights from 20 until 23 April 2016. 

From June 1-15 in both Philadelphia (Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts) and New York (Roulette in Brooklyn), PRISM-dubbed 'one of America's finest saxophone quartets for three decades' by The New Yorker -- will partner with the PARTCH Ensemble and So Percussion, and composers Ken Ueno, Steven Mackey and Stratis Minakakis to perform, explore, and record a new body of music combining saxophones with a breathtaking range of percussion instruments in COLOR THEORY.

The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, located at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, announces its Spring 2016 season of public programs. The season successfully launched with The Second Annual Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (February 25 + 26), a yearly event that celebrates the themes of theatre and performance on the screen. The season continues with free public programs throughout the fall and winter, featuring contemporary theatre and performing artists from around the world.

Alley Theatre presents REMOTE HOUSTON, a participatory, pedestrian-based live theatre experience where groups of 50 individuals meet and discover the city of Houston from a new remote perspective. The performances begin April 12 and run through May 13.

Cambridge, MA (FOR RELEASE 1.11.16) — As the 2015-16 contemporary music ensemble-in-residence at Cambridge's Le Laboratoire, the Ecce Ensemble premieres Switch, a contemporary opera written and composed by John Aylward, directed by Laine Rettmer (Loft Opera), and conducted by Jean-Philippe Wurtz (Ensemble Linea). Featuring two vocalists—Amanda DeBoer Bartlett (soprano) and Mikhail Smigelskii (bass-baritone)—backed by the Ecce Ensemble, Switch explores the relationship between an artist and his muse. In addition to two consecutive weekends of performances, Ecce hosts two free, complementary events open to the public at Le Lab: Re-Imagining Contemporary Opera, an artist talk with Aylward and Rettmer on February 3rd at 6:30 p.m.; and Composers' Reading Session, a workshop/presentation of young local composers' chamber works led by Wurtz on February 15th at 12:00 p.m.

Cambridge, MA (FOR RELEASE 1.11.16) — As the 2015-16 contemporary music ensemble-in-residence at Cambridge's Le Laboratoire, the Ecce Ensemble premieres Switch, a contemporary opera written and composed by John Aylward, directed by Laine Rettmer (Loft Opera), and conducted by Jean-Philippe Wurtz (Ensemble Linea). Featuring two vocalists—Amanda DeBoer Bartlett (soprano) and Mikhail Smigelskii (bass-baritone)—backed by the Ecce Ensemble, Switch explores the relationship between an artist and his muse. In addition to two consecutive weekends of performances, Ecce hosts two free, complementary events open to the public at Le Lab: Re-Imagining Contemporary Opera, an artist talk with Aylward and Rettmer on February 3rd at 6:30 p.m.; and Composers' Reading Session, a workshop/presentation of young local composers' chamber works led by Wurtz on February 15th at 12:00 p.m.

Written and directed by Nancy Keystone in collaboration with the company, the cast of Ameryka will feature Curt Bonnem, Russell Edge, Ray Ford, Lorne Green, Drew Stafford Harper, Danielle K. Jones, Christopher Salazar, Nick Santoro, and Valerie Spencer.

As part of New York City Ballet's Winter Season 2016 at Lincoln Center's Koch Theater, the program appropriately entitled 'Masters at Work' was a perfect pairing of two disparate yet in one way similar creations by the troupe's founding choreographers, George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. Mr. B's Liebeslieder Walzer, which premiered in November of 1960, is a lush and romantic evocation of 19th century Vienna to the music of Johannes Brahms set to poems by Friedrich Daumer and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. In contrast, Robbins's Glass Pieces dating from 1984 is a pulsing portrayal of urban urgency in the 20th century with Philip Glass's minimalist score as the accompaniment.

Cambridge, MA (FOR RELEASE 1.11.16) — As the 2015-16 contemporary music ensemble-in-residence at Cambridge's Le Laboratoire, the Ecce Ensemble premieres Switch, a contemporary opera written and composed by John Aylward, directed by Laine Rettmer (Loft Opera), and conducted by Jean-Philippe Wurtz (Ensemble Linea). Featuring two vocalists—Amanda DeBoer Bartlett (soprano) and Mikhail Smigelskii (bass-baritone)—backed by the Ecce Ensemble, Switch explores the relationship between an artist and his muse. In addition to two consecutive weekends of performances, Ecce hosts two free, complementary events open to the public at Le Lab: Re-Imagining Contemporary Opera, an artist talk with Aylward and Rettmer on February 3rd at 6:30 p.m.; and Composers' Reading Session, a workshop/presentation of young local composers' chamber works led by Wurtz on February 15th at 12:00 p.m.

Cambridge, MA (FOR RELEASE 1.11.16) — As the 2015-16 contemporary music ensemble-in-residence at Cambridge's Le Laboratoire, the Ecce Ensemble premieres Switch, a contemporary opera written and composed by John Aylward, directed by Laine Rettmer (Loft Opera), and conducted by Jean-Philippe Wurtz (Ensemble Linea). Featuring two vocalists—Amanda DeBoer Bartlett (soprano) and Mikhail Smigelskii (bass-baritone)—backed by the Ecce Ensemble, Switch explores the relationship between an artist and his muse. In addition to two consecutive weekends of performances, Ecce hosts two free, complementary events open to the public at Le Lab: Re-Imagining Contemporary Opera, an artist talk with Aylward and Rettmer on February 3rd at 6:30 p.m.; and Composers' Reading Session, a workshop/presentation of young local composers' chamber works led by Wurtz on February 15th at 12:00 p.m.

Cambridge, MA (FOR RELEASE 11.18.15) – As the contemporary music ensemble-in- residence at Cambridge's Le Laboratoire, ECCE presents a one-night only performance of Earle Brown's December 1952, in conjunction with the gallery's current exhibit, BIRDLY by Max Rheiner. Featuring dispersed acoustic performances by ECCE (violinist Karen Kim, bass clarinetist Vasko Dukovski, tubaist Ben Stapp, bassoonist Sarah Schoenbeck) interspersed with recorded polyphony by sound designer Ricardo Romaneiro, this spatial rendering of December 1952 is an aural analog to BIRDLY's virtual reality experience.

Brooklyn Art Song Society returns to the Brooklyn Historical Society tonight, December 3rd 2015 for part three of Britannica after last year's sold out all-Poulenc program.

Pioneers Go East Collective has announced that La MaMa will present their production ofHILDEGARD (vision), an intimate and immersive performance installation inspired by the life and work of visionary nun Hildegard Von Bingen, written by Abby Felder and directed by Gian Marco Lo Forte with sound design/composition by John Sully, and choreography by Ellen Fisher, tonight, December 3 - 20th at LaMaMa, 74A East 4th Street in Manhattan. The official opening will be on Sunday, December 6th at 2:00PM.

In 2015, Seabright Productions - an independent commercial theatre production company based in London and led by James Seabright - produced shows around the UK and abroad, including West End seasons for Potted Sherlock (Vaudeville) and Showstopper! The Improvised Musical (Apollo), UK tours of It's A Wonderful Life, Outings and The Only Way Is Downton, plus international tours of Potted Potter (US & Canada) America's Got Downton (US) andUpside Downton (Toronto) and Edinburgh fringe premieres. Shows for 2016 include (in chronological order):

Brooklyn Art Song Society returns to the Brooklyn Historical Society on December 3rd 2015 for part three of Britannica after last year's sold out all-Poulenc program. For this program BASS features two of the most beloved British song cycles: Gerald Finzi's A Young Man's Exhortation and Ralph Vaughan William's Songs of Travel. For A Young Man's Exhortation Finzi set the poetry of Thomas Hardy (Tess of the d'Urbervilles); in fact, the relationship between Finzi and Hardy is akin to that between Schubert and Goethe. Songs of Travel captures the romance and idealism of youth through the works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Treasure Island). Gerald Finzi's masterpiece will be performed by tenor Dominic Armstrong accompanied by pianist Michael Brofman. Baritone Sydney Outlaw and pianist Brent Funderburk both make their BASS debut with Songs of Travel.

Cambridge, MA (FOR RELEASE 11.18.15) – As the contemporary music ensemble-in- residence at Cambridge's Le Laboratoire, ECCE presents a one-night only performance of Earle Brown's December 1952, in conjunction with the gallery's current exhibit, BIRDLY by Max Rheiner. Featuring dispersed acoustic performances by ECCE (violinist Karen Kim, bass clarinetist Vasko Dukovski, tubaist Ben Stapp, bassoonist Sarah Schoenbeck) interspersed with recorded polyphony by sound designer Ricardo Romaneiro, this spatial rendering of December 1952 is an aural analog to BIRDLY's virtual reality experience.

The Play Company's (PlayCo) 2015-16 Idea Lab features three curated events, November 18 & 28 and December 4, following performances of award-winning, German playwright Maria Milisavljevic's Abyss. The critically acclaimed U.S. premiere, directed by Maria Mileaf, runs through December 6 at Theaterlab, 357 West 36th Street. Writing about Abyss for The New York Times, Ben Brantley praised the 'poetic drama,' as 'genuinely artful...And it will take you places you didn't expect to go.' Speaking about the play's painfully current themes, he said it considers, 'some very topical questions of European national identities in a time of permeable and shifting borders.'