Experiments in Opera: Rainbird
$15-$35
- Gelsey Bell, voice
- Chris DiMeglio, voice
- Katie Geissinger, voice
- Shurmila Dhar, voice
- Jeff Tobias, voice
- Sugar Vendil, keyboards
- Andie Tanning, violin
- Jess Tsang, percussion
Rainbird is an adaptation of the novel Yellow Flowers in the Antipodean Room by the celebrated New Zealand author Janet Frame. Rainbird tells the story of a middle-aged family man in New Zealand named Godfrey Rainbird who gets hit by a car and is pronounced dead. After the funeral arrangements have been made and his belongings have been cleared from the house, he wakes up in the morgue. What ensues is the emotional struggle of the Rainbird family, not in accepting Godfrey's death, but, rather, his resurrection. Now a symbol of death, he is ostracized by his community and his family destroyed.
About Gelsey Bell, voice
Gelsey Bell is a singer, songwriter, and scholar—a composer-performer, teacher, and sound artist. She has been described by The New York Times as "one of New York's most adventurous musicians" and the "future of experimental vocalism." She performs regularly as a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, culling from a wide range of techniques and styles to create her own performance works, to literally voice those of contemporary composers, and to explore improvisation.
https://gelseybell.com/About Chris DiMeglio, voice
About Shurmila Dhar, voice
Shurmila Dhar is a New York-based vocalist. She began her classical vocal training in 2010 and continued her studies at the Peabody Conservatory where she graduated with a Bachelor of Music in classical voice performance in 2018. She has since branched out as a concert vocalist and improviser with a focus in contemporary classical. Her improvising style features a wide range of techniques that focus primarily on the extremes of the voice and its vast timbral palette as well as pushing the limitations of the human voice. Dhar has performed with a number of groups including Echo Ensemble and Aakash Mittal's Awaz Trio. She has also performed several leading operatic roles including, but not limited to: Girl 3 in the U.S. premiere of Errollyn Wallen's ANON, Dido in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, Adina in Donizetti's L'Elisir D'Amore, and Pamina in Mozart's Die Zauberflote. Her solo concert performances include Schubert's Mignon Lieder, Wolf's Italienisches Liederbuch, and Satie's Cabaret Songs.
About Jeff Tobias, voice
About Sugar Vendil, keyboards
Sugar Vendil (she/they) is a composer, pianist, and interdisciplinary artist who is forging new creative pathways as a second generation Filipinx American. She started her artistic life as a classical pianist, and after spending nearly a decade searching for her own voice, her practice evolved into making music and performances that integrate sound, movement, and unconventional approaches to the piano. She has a keyboard/synth duo, Vanity Project, with composer Trevor Gureckis.
https://sugarvendil.com/