Composed by Paola Prestini

Featuring ACME with Gabriel Kahane, Rinde Eckert, John Bufallo Mailer conducted by Andre de Quadros

For more information on this upcoming event, visit www.PROTOTYPEfestival.org

The Aging Magician (Part I)

Composed by Paola Prestini

Featuring ACME with Gabriel Kahane, Rinde Eckert, John Bufallo Mailer conducted by Andre de Quadros

The Aging Magician (Part II)

composed by David T. Little

For more information on this upcoming event, visit www.PROTOTYPEfestival.org

Soldier Songs - "Hollywood Ending"

composed by Mohammed Fairouz

The World Premiere of Mohammed Fairouz’s opera Sumeida’s Song on the HERE Main Stage for PROTOTYPE will be the first Arab-American opera to be fully produced on an American stage.  Based on the classic Tawfiq El-Hakim play, Song of Death, the opera follows the return of a young man, Alwan, from Cairo to his Upper Egyptian peasant village. He defies his family’s expectations to fulfill an age-old blood feud, instead revealing the true purpose of his return: to end the cycle of violence. For his attempts to bring light and modernity to his village, and for challenging the structure of his society, he pays the ultimate price.

Tawfiq El-Hakim's story is well known in the Arab World, and Fairouz’s operatic adaptation captures the underlying aspirations of young people, like Alwan, who stand up for their ideals and for aspirations of a better life. Alwan's resonant proclamation — "I won’t kill" — embodies the noble mission of justice and progress in this timeless, timely, and universal story.

This world-premiere production will feature a chamber orchestration with Arabic and western instruments.  Mezzo-soprano Rachel Calloway leads the cast of four singers.


CREDITS

Created and Composed by Mohammed Fairouz
Directed by David Herskovits
Featuring Rachel Calloway
Music Director Steven Osgood

Set Design by Zane Pihlstrom
Lighting Design by Lenore Doxsee
Costume Design by Alixa Gage
Production Stage Manager Ryan Gohsman

Running Time: 60 Minutes

Post-Performance Discussion will follow the January 14th show. 

Sumeida's Song (Preview)

The dark glam opera band Timur and the Dime Museum presents a galactic multimedia show for the first time on the East Coast in HERE's intimate Dorothy B. Williams Theatre.  Fusing avant-garde, pop & vaudeville sounds, Timur and the Dime Museum creates a rich amalgam of sensibilities with Bjork fierceness, and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins theatricality.  Led by the rising opera singer from Kazakhstan Timur Bekbosunov, profiled in LA Weekly's BEST OF LA People Issue 2011, the band’s stunning intensity brings songs to cure the new depression with a post-punk bohemian attitude. Interactive multimedia, conceptualized and designed by World Technology Network fellow Jesse Gilbert, along with striking cinematic images by experimental LA filmmaker Sandra Powers, will further enhance this macabre evening of musical performance.  

Formed as a result of collaboration with the Klaus Nomi songwriter Kristian Hoffman, dark glam band Timur and the Dime Museum, described by Los Angeles Times as “punk-operatic spectacle”, has appeared at the prestigious ALOUD series; on America’s Got Talent; opened for Tiger Lilies, The Red Paintings, DeVotchKa, Prince Poppycock; Un-cabaret (Margaret Cho); premiered operas “Zoophilic Follies” by Daniel Corral at Redcat Theater’s NOW festival, and “Crescent City” by Anne LeBaron. Led by “stratospheric tenor” (LA Times) Timur Bekbosunov, recently featured in LA Weekly’s BEST OF LA 2011, the band embraces multi-disciplinary collaboration as part of their ongoing work with composers and songwriters.

Immediately following their successful debut at the ALOUD series at the Mark Taper Auditiorium in LA, Timur and the Dime Museum established a strong following of fans, and received endorsements from artists, such as Amanda Palmer, DeVotchKa and Sondre Lerche.  The band performed in numerous venues around LA and beyond, including Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle.  The band creates unconventional and fascinating sounds, combining Timur's “charismatic tenor” (LA Times) with electric guitar, upright bass, accordion, bass clarinet, viola, and drums.  Embracing the notion of multi-disciplinary contemporary projects, T&DM began a series of collaborations, directly working with composers on their music. Timur, a noted interpreter of contemporary and cross-cultural music, and the members of the band, all are graduates of California Institute of the Arts, and individually, have performed in countless major projects, productions, festivals and venues around the world.

CREDITS 

Timur and the Dime Museum is: 
Timur Bekbosunov, Daniel Corral, Andrew Lessman, Brian Walsh, David Tranchina, and Cassia Streb. 

Filmography and art-direction by Sandra Powers
Interactive multimedia concept and design by Jesse Gilbert

Running Time: 60 Minutes

Cocktails and Conversation will follow the 7PM January 12th performance. 

Timur and the Dime Museum - "Total Eclipse"

PROTOTYPE: Opera/Theatre/Now is an annual festival of visionary music theatre and opera-theatre works by pioneering artists from New York and around the world. A new body of work is on the brink of exploding out of New York and onto the national scene, as an exciting new generation of composers and collaborators focus on the creation of chamber-sized theatre works in new and unique ways.

PROTOTYPE Festival

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