CooperArts Fall
2004
Intoxicate
the brain!
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art presents its CooperArts Fall 2004 lineup of programs. Produced by Howard Stokar and intended to bring New Yorkers rarely seen performing and literary arts events, CooperArts is the college's ongoing cultural series.
CELEBRATING JOHN
ASHBERY WITH SPECULUM MUSICAE
Friday, October 8, 2004, 7:30 p.m.
As one of the most influential and innovative poets of our time, John Ashbery is the author of more than twenty books of poetry including Other Traditions: the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures. The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet will read from his work and Speculum Musicae will perform musical settings of Ashbery’s poetry by leading American composers. Vocal soloists include Kevin Deas, bass; Elizabeth Farnum, soprano; Ryan MacPherson, tenor; and Mary Nessinger, mezzo-soprano.
The Great Hall (7 East 7th Street at 3rd Avenue)
$20, general admission, $15 students/seniors (at the door only one hour
before show)
STEVE
REICH & MUSICIANS
"DRUMMING"
Thursday, October 14, 2004, 7:30 p.m.
One performance only!
"…America’s
greatest living composer" (The Village Voice)
"...the most
original musical thinker of our time" (The New Yorker)
"...among the
great composers of the century" (The New York Times)
"There's just a
handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the
direction of musical history and Steve Reich is one of them." The
Guardian (London).
The Great Hall (7 East 7th Street at 3rd Avenue)
Cost: $30, general admission, $15 students/seniors (at the door only one hour
before show)
THE
BINDING OF ISAAC:
AVIVAH GOTTLIEB ZORNBERG
Monday, October 25, 2004, 7:30 p.m.
Dr. Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, one of the most respected Biblical scholars and thinkers of our time, will offer a talk in The Great Hall entitled "Abraham Bound and Unbound." The program will also include Benjamin Britten’s beautiful Canticle II (Abraham and Isaac) performed by three of NYC’s finest musicians: William Ferguson, tenor; Robert Isaacs, countertenor and Ken Noda, piano. Introductory cantillation by Cantor Joseph Ness.
Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg earned a Ph.D. in English literature from Cambridge University, and worked as a lecturer in the English Department at Hebrew University before turning to the teaching of religion. She has conducted classes in Torah for thousands of students at several different institutions in Israel. She also lectures widely in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, and holds a visiting lectureship at the London School of Jewish Studies, an affiliate of the University of London.
The Great Hall (7 East 7th Street at 3rd Avenue)
$20, general admission, $15 students/seniors (at the door only one hour
before show)
POMERIUM
WORKS BY OCKEGHEM
Saturday, November 13, 2004, 7:30 p.m.
Alexander Blachly leads the choral music group Pomerium in a program dedicated to Johannes Ockeghem, one of the most respected composers of the fifteenth-century. His greatest achievements were a dozen polyphonic Masses, plus a Requiem, each unique in approach and style. Pomerium's program features three of these: the Missa L'homme armé, in which Ockeghem shows his ability to write in the style of Guillaume Du Fay; the Missa Prolacionum, an amazing, but enchanting, work in double canon and four prolations (meters); and the Missa Au travail suis, a brief, strikingly melodic essay, probably from the composer's last years. To round out the picture of Ockeghem's musical personality, the program also includes a motet (Ave Maria) and a lament on the death of Gilles Binchois (Mort, tu as navré), who was most likely Ockeghem's teacher.
The Great Hall (7 East 7th Street at 3rd Avenue)
$20, general admission, $15 students/seniors (at the door only one hour
before show)
MORTON
FELDMAN: PATTERNS IN A CHROMATIC FIELD
Saturday, December 4, 2004, 7:30 p.m.
Celebrating their new release, Charles Curtis and Aleck Karis perform Feldman’s 1981 masterpiece, Patterns In A Chromatic Field. Revealing qualities that are almost unique in his output – breathless speed; abrupt changes in texture and mood; a charged, brittle intensity - this monumental 80 minute canvas conveys a stark, hypnotic beauty. The score is worked out in an obsessive intricacy of detail, resembling an obscure encoded text in a forgotten language. Feldman compared the very slight microtonality in the cello writing – indicated by an esoteric system of double-sharps and flats – to the natural dyes in antique carpets: the slight variations in hue and intensity of a particular color cause the entire "chromatic field" of a carpet to shimmer.
The Great Hall (7 East 7th Street at 3rd Avenue)
$20, general admission, $15 students/seniors (at the door only one hour
before show)
General admission tickets to CooperArts range between $20 and $30. Students/seniors (at the door only one hour before the show) are priced at $15. Tickets are available starting September 13th via Ticket Central (212) 279-4200 or www.ticketcentral.org. All CooperArts musical events at The Cooper Union take place in The Great Hall, East 7th Street at Third Avenue, New York. The Great Hall is wheelchair accessible. For further information on CooperArts events, please call (212) 353-4195.
Tickets on sale September 13, 2004. Tickets are general admission. They are available via TicketCentral (212) 279-4200 (1-8 p.m. daily) or www.ticketcentral.org.
For further information about CooperArts, call (212) 353-4196.