Roulette: Numinous
$25 advance, $30 doors ($20 student/ages 65+ w/ ID)
- Rebecca L. Hargrove, soprano
- Ariadne Greif, soprano
- Joseph C. Phillips Jr., conductor
Anthony Branker — The Door of No Return (world premiere)
Bob Goldberg — Dream Sequence (world premiere)
Steven Swartz — Any minute, now (world premiere)
Joseph C. Phillips Jr. — So Far Behind Now Because Then (excerpts; Rebecca L. Hargrove & Ariadne Greif, sopranos)
Joseph C. Phillips Jr.'s 21-member Numinous ensemble returns to Roulette to present excerpts from his opera So Far Behind Now Because Then along with world premieres by George Brandon, Anthony Branker, Bob Goldberg, and Steven Swartz.
Swartz's Any minute, now (2021-23) references the COVID-19 pandemic. Says the composer, "For most, it was a time of waiting, alternately tinged with boredom, despair, frustration, and flickers of optimism. In the two contrasting panels that comprise Any minute, now, time passes in distinctly different ways. The first part is yearning and expectant; the second, suspended and tremulous. Waves of hope crest and recede, looking out toward an uncertain future."
George Brandon's Introduction, Litany, and Prayers represents the composer's wish to "counter those people and those forces that endanger the good of the earth." The title of Anthony Branker's The Door of No Return refers to a portal on Gorée Island in Senegal through which many enslaved Africans passed as they were led onto ships destined for the New World. Bob Goldberg's Dream Sequence is the composer's new arrangement of a piece originally written for twelve accordions.
In the second set, Numinous will perform a few excerpts from the first opera in the 1619 opera cycle, So Far Behind Now Because of Then by Joseph C Phillips Jr.. Reduced from the original 50-person orchestra to a 21-person chamber ensemble, the performance will feature sopranos Rebecca L. Hargrove and Ariadne Greif singing excerpts from their roles in the opera. The opera is centered on a Black family's experience living in a sundown town outside of Chicago in 1948. This performance will be a first chance to publicly hear selections from the opera and to learn more about the development of the cycle and how "the past is still present."
A livestream will be available free of charge at 8pm on the day of the performance and archived for future viewing.
About Numinous
Numinous is a flexible and unique large ensemble that was founded in 2000 by composer Joseph C. Phillips Jr. to perform his music. The musicians in Numinous have also performed with: Joyce DiDonato, MET Opera, Bang on A Can All-Stars, Signal, Alarm will Sound, Björk, Sting, Stevie Wonder, International Contemporary Ensemble, Rufus Wainwright, Steve Reich , Newspeak, Laurie Anderson, Hans Zimmer, John Zorn, Victoire, Asphalt Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, Darcy James Argue's Secret Society, Houston Symphony, Maria Schneider Orchestra, Henry Threadgill, and many other contemporary ensembles and artists.
Part-chamber orchestra, part-contemporary alternative group, Numinous deftly and organically transmutes inspiration from contemporary classical, jazz, world, and popular music as well as cinema, literature, and science. Through its numerous performances—such as at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM)’s Next Wave Festival, the Ecstatic Music Festival and Merkin Concert Hall, (Le) Poisson Rouge, Roulette—and critically well-received recordings The Music of Joseph C. Phillips Jr. (2003, Numen Records), Vipassana (2009, innova Recordings), Changing Same (2015, New Amsterdam Records), and The Grey Land (2020, New Amsterdam Records), Numinous reflects Phillips's musical philosophy of mixed music; the term is inspired by mixed race people who have traits and characteristics that come from each individual parent, from the melding of the two, and their own uniqueness. Mixed music is an organic fusing of various artistic and cultural influences into one distinctive and singular vision. Numinous and Phillips’s music generate emotions in the listener that resonate with beauty, mystery, and wonder in order to challenge, enlighten, and refresh.
http://www.numinousmusic.com/About Rebecca L. Hargrove, soprano
About Ariadne Greif, soprano
Ariadne Greif, praised for her "luminous, expressive voice," "searing top notes," and "dusky depths," (NYTimes), enjoyed a casual child career as a “boy” soprano at the LA Opera, eventually making an adult debut singing Lutoslawski's Chantefleurs et Chantefables with the American Symphony Orchestra. She starred in operas ranging from Donizetti’s Elixir of Love with The Orlando Philharmonic, to Poulenc's Les Mamelles de Tirésias at the Aldeburgh Festival, and Atthis, by G.F. Haas, which The NY Times called "one of the most searingly painful and revealing operatic performances in recent times.”
She performed with William Kentridge in his production of Ursonate at the Luxembourg Philharmonie, the Performa Festival, CalPerformances, and the Ultima Festival in Oslo, where she was invited back for September 2020 and 2022 with two large pieces of her own. She stepped in at the last minute at the 2022 Ojai Festival with AMOC, and starred in a film for Opera Philadelphia of We Need To Talk, a new monodrama written for Ariadne by Caroline Shaw and Anne Carson, as well as an opera film called Table Manners by Sheree Clement. Ariadne has premiered upwards of twenty new operas and more than a hundred new chamber works.
Ariadne has performed at Resonant Bodies, Sydney Chamber Opera, Sarasota Opera House, The Meidan Festival, Den Norske Opera, with the Orlando Philharmonic, The Knights, and across the US, Canada, France, Finland, and the Middle East, including more than 200 concerts with Ensemble Mélange, and in appearances with Pekka Kuusisto, Gabriel Kahane, Lukas Ligeti, and JACK Quartet, among others.
http://www.ariadnegreifsoprano.com/