Cyber Salon
The RWO Final Season Kickoff Event!
Sunday, July 31 at 7pm EDT
You can watch right here:
About The Event
RWO launches its farewell season with the final Cyber Salon. Throughout its history, RWO hosted regular in-person Salon series where musicians, ensembles, and artists were invited to present their works and works-in-progress in an informal event. RWO shifted the format to an online Cyber Salon during the 2020 Cyber Season, and the company is excited to conclude the series with one more Cyber Salon. The 2022 Cyber Salon features music of previous RWO composers written and produced during the pandemic, and will include live interviews with the composers and performers from locations across the country.
Tune in to watch pandemic creations by Taylor Bradshaw, Kevin Clark, Daniel Thomas Davis, Gilbert Galindo, and Sean McFarland, and performances by RWO singers Elisabeth Halliday-Quan, Bonnie Lander, and Robert Maril. Including live interviews!
Featuring Performances By
Elisabeth Halliday-Quan (soprano)
Bonnie Lander (soprano)
Robert Maril (baritone)
Program Notes
1. Bushwick Sonnet by Sean McFarland
From the composer: Bushwick Sonnet is a piece that was commissioned by RWO in the pandemic, but only the short version ended up making the cut then. It uses many of my favorite Shakespeare sonnets to support the text that I wrote (not actually a sonnet, sorry) about an on-again-off-again relationship in Bushwick. My initial idea was to create a one note melody, but it ended up being 4 pitches. The slurry of text involved is all on screen in a contemporary music karaoke style video by Tonya Gardner. I hope you enjoy.
Bonnie Lander - voice
Nathaniel Parks - voice
Sean McFarland - voice
Text by Shakespeare and Sean McFarland
2. Findern Songs, Version for Voice and Electric Hurdy-Gurdy by Daniel Thomas Davis
From the composer: The three texts, which were probably written by anonymous women in the late 1400s,nwere adapted from the Middle-English Findern Manuscript.
When I first encountered these three poems, my mind and ear turned almost immediately to one fundamental idea—these mournful texts were, in a particular half-millenium-old way, torch-song lyrics. With that in mind, I set about writing a set of three songs that brings together a number of recognizable elements in 20th- and 21st-century popular torch songs with the gestures, mannerisms and syntax of much earlier musical and literary practices. Here, instead of Nina Simone and piano, Dolly Parton and guitar, The Carpenters, or Donna Summer and disco synth, we have a different sort of duo, but one with clear overtones back to vernacular genres. The results, I hope, are not so much torch songs from another time or another place but rather songs from a place and time parallel to our own.
1. Continuance
3. Turn Thy Whele
Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek, voice
Daniel Thomas Davis, electric hurdy-gurdy
3. Laura, from the album “Twine” by Taylor Bradshaw
From the composer: I recorded this performance video of my song Laura in May of 2020, when the NYC shutdown was still quite recent. I had just released my solo album Twine in February, and was on tour just before everything went sideways. We started off strong, playing all kinds of house parties and Northeastern venues. By the last date in Philly, people were rubbing elbows instead of shaking hands. Four days after we returned to NYC, the city shut down. This video was recorded on the fire escape outside my bedroom window. Originally on Instagram, it had the cheeky pandemic text of "When you can't see your boo in real life so you sing from the fire escape instead." This little video struck a chord with people, and got hundreds of thousands of views from there.
Laura is a song about loving a person who is far away, and wondering what life would be
like if she were near all the time. It seemed a fitting theme for this recently isolated world. In the face of isolation, we used the internet to reconnect to one another. And videos like these were part of that reconnection.
4. Nada te turbe for voices and strings - 2. (Samadhi) by Gilbert Galindo
Music: Gilbert Galindo
Text: Ulises Solano
(Samadhi)
Sitting there for a while,
away from all things,
dwelling in godly realms,
guided by tiny smiles—
like little Gotama under the rose Apple tree.
Intense joy fills me for a moment, and sharing it with all beings I rejoice in their joy,
Serenity like no other enters my heart. Sitting there for a while…
in infinite space, anywhere is here…
and from there infinite consciousness…
every thought one thought…
vanishing into infinite nothingness, soothing…
falling like waterfalls from one pool to another until one cannot tell if one is here or not…
Sitting there for a while…
Complete stillness…
then slowly, shining as the morning sun,
one by one the senses begin again, vibrant,
as though a baby with freshness anew.
One death, one rebirth,
so was Samadhi.
Still, sitting there for a while…
World Premiere:
ÆON Ensemble
March 6, 2022
Church-in-the-Gardens, Forest Hills, New York
5. Employees Must Wash Hands by Kevin Clark
Elisabeth Halliday-Quan, soprano and video
Zach Herchen, saxophone and audio
6. Tender Creature: Robert Maril and Steph Bishop
7. Three Songs near Omaha Nebraska by Paul Pinto
Performed by Kayleigh Butcher, Bonnie Lander, and Paul Pinto
Production Support
The 2022 Cyber Salon is made possible in part with public funds from Creative Engagement, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and administered by LMCC. Rhymes With Opera's programming is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
