Broadcast Thursday, April 8, 2021. 8:00 pm via ROULETTE

​The acclaimed electro-acoustic composer and harpist Zeena Parkins returns to Roulette to present a concert in two parts. Ekstasis I (Season 2) is the beginning of a series of public presentations inspired by the work of Bay Area artist Jay DeFeo. For this performance Megan Schubert (voice/objects) joins Parkins (electric harp, bells + bowls/environment sounds, fixed and dislodged media), to navigate a topography of erasure by accumulation, revealing clues of the Sisyphean tasks of a working artist: layered, carved, scraped, incised, molded: the between to be collapsed.

“…Hopefully, even the most literal works transcend the definition of the objects from which they are derived.” — Jay DeFeo

In Lace_Mvt IV, Parkins (acoustic harp/objects/feedback) joins the trio Green Dome with Ryan Sawyer (drums, feedback) and Ryan Ross Smith (piano/electronics/feedback). In the piece, eight lace pieces serve as scores for this new addition to LACE, a long-term project that started in 2008.

“Lace exposes the knot and loop as central refrains, congealing time in the mise en abyme of thread…transposing the non-transposable.” — Jenn Joy

Throughout this past year, I'd been involved in a number of projects, remotely. Here are a few.

A new work in response to the coronavirus crisis featuring contributions from the public
by Lisa Bielawa
with Kaufman Music Center in New York City as Lead Partner
"Begun on April 9, 2020, Broadcast from Home is a large-scale work open to contributions from people around the world."

CHAPTER 8: ”Who Knows?”
MAY 28, 2020 TEXT / CREDITS
"All of this week's testimonies are from teenagers, who are trying to look towards a future that is constantly shifting. Uncertainty is uncomfortable!"
CHAPTER 9: ”Hear me, hear me, hear me”
JUNE 4, 2020 TEXT / CREDITS
"At its core is a testimony from an Anonymous 15-year-old in Brooklyn, who writes, ''Justice,' for too long, has been a faint hum… Hear me, hear me, hear me.'"
CHAPTER 15: ”After-lives”
JULY 16, 2020 TEXT / CREDITS
"We are seeing our former lives through a new lens now, as we begin this new phase. This Chapter is dedicated, with love and gratitude, to the hundreds of you who participated in this collaboration."

FAPC virtual choir
"The Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church Chamber Choir is a select vocal ensemble of 18 to 24 of New York’s finest professional singers. ...this choir presents several concerts each season, of repertoire ranging from Renaissance polyphony through contemporary American."

Kitty Brazelton's choral project STORM

"STORM derives Latin text from Vulgate Psalm 103 about fire, flood and a great storm. Translated and set to music by Kitty Brazelton in 2012, after Hurricane Sandy flooded New York City, the piece won an Ossietzky KompositionPreis from the University of Oldenburg, Germany. In 2020, the overflow of anger, plague, fire, storm and flood brought the words and music renewed resonance, and Brazelton adapted it for the COVID Choirs Project, all the singers recording from home in quarantine. From homes all over the world."

The Vicksburg Project
Eve Beglarian, Karen Kandel, Mallory Catlett
To be staged at Mabou Mines, 2022
A staged song cycle of twelve interlocked songs that trace women’s experiences in Vicksburg Mississippi during four different eras: the Civil War 1860s, the Jim Crow/Great Migration 1910s, the Civil Rights 1960s, and the current decade.
I'll be playing Emilie Riley McKinley and have been involved in the development of her song, derived from her diary, these past few months.

A Marvelous Order (Judd Greenstein/Tracy K. Smith/Joshua Frankel) is a forthcoming multimedia opera about the battle between Robert Moses [played by Dashon Burton], the Master Builder, and Jane Jacobs [played by yours truly], the self-taught oracle of unparalleled urban insight, over the fate of New York City. When Moses plans to demolish Jacobs' home and neighborhood, Jacobs leads a revolt, igniting a conflict that continues to shape built environments around the world—from small towns to global cities—and the lives of all who call them home. 

What would have been September of 2020, then this week, the PSU residency was postponed again.
World Premiere slated for the fall!

Written and Directed by Amanda Turner Pohan
Composer: Charlie Looker
Choreographer: Dages Juvelier Keates, Amanda Turner Pohan
Performer: Katy Pinke
Vocalists: Daisy Press, Megan Schubert
Flautists: Kelley Barnett, Isabel Gleicher
Dancers: Dages Juvelier Keates, Amanda Turner Pohan

EMPAC presentation

Broadcast 5pm February, 4, 2021
Direct Youtube Link

Press Release
EMPAC and the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College present Alexa Echoes, a film in the mode of a chamber opera by visual artist Amanda Turner Pohan in collaboration with composer Charlie Looker, choreographer Dages Juvelier Keates, and performer Katy Pinke.

The first iteration in a series of three performances, Alexa Echoes recasts the relationship between cultural movements and commercial technologies through the history of women’s devocalization and disembodiment. It begins with mythical Greek figures, such as Echo, and leads up to Amazon’s smart speaker and digital voice-based assistant for Alexa, also named Echo. Produced after travel restrictions and social distancing measures were implemented at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the film combines footage shot in the empty spaces of EMPAC with recordings from the collaborators’ homes and remote studios.

In this film, EMPAC is concurrently the site of production, the setting, and the subject that surround three manifestations of the voice: candid, staged, and disembodied. As in much of Pohan’s interdisciplinary oeuvre, the film looks at the body’s complicated relationship to technology as it relates to autonomy, animation, and the melismatic sound of breath. Alexa Echoes incorporates movement, speech, and an orchestral score to abstract the gendered decisions that frame new media technologies, gesturing to the corporate entities which choreograph them.
​
The film will be released on EMPAC’s website accompanied by a text version of the project’s script. Alexa Echoes was developed as part of a residency at EMPAC organized by Muheb Esmat, Marisa Espe, Bergen Hendrickson, Ciena Leshley, Ana Lopes, Liz Lorenz, Brooke Nicolas, Elizaveta Shneyderman, and Rachel Vera Steinberg from Bard College’s Center for Curatorial Studies class of 2020, working with EMPAC curator Vic Brooks.

I waited to take the time to address the loss of my boss and mentor, Gershon Kingsley, and then I lost another elder and close friend of Gershon’s soon after: Anton Coppola.

After working so closely with Gershon for 10 years, and then showing up to an empty studio after his death, keeping the same routine but with nothing but reminders of a brilliant man who suffered in the aging process and the loss of his beloved wife, Lillian, a year prior, I may have had a head-start on a soul-searching quarantine of sorts. It was a battle to turn my energy outwards, after earnestly assuming a supporting role and serving as an extension of Gershon’s slowly failing memory, and trying to make his days tolerable but also not glazed-over with fake positivity. However, towards the end of Gershon’s life, I did start changing the channel to TCM so that he wouldn’t wake up to Donald Trump’s face staring down at him from the giant flat screen TV across from his favorite chair. What a waking nightmare Trump and his enablers have relentlessly sustained--and that's been the backdrop for profound losses only those in their "golden years" understand. Tony (as Gersh used to call Anton Coppola) used to joke about volunteering to assassinate Donald Trump, “because what’s a life sentence when you’re already over 100 years old?” Tony and Gersh lived very full lives, and are missed. I am honored to continue working for both their families. In Gershon's case, I'll be helping to preserve his legacy.

Here are their New York Times Obituaries:

Gershon Kingsley

Anton Coppola

Post COVID-19, public memorials will be planned for both.

​First photo from foreground to background: me, Gershon, and Caley Monahan Ward (Emily Manzo was playing piano)
Second photo, left to right: Gershon, Lillian Bozinoff Kingsley, and Anton Coppola
Third photo, left to right: Gershon, Anton
Fourth photo, Gershon and Lillian (taken by Jocelyn Barranco, the previous three were taken by me)

-Launched another production of QUARTET at Lady Fest at The Tank! With Anaïs Maviel's "Be" and my "Late Duck"  with Gelsey Bell and Yoon Sun Choi August 25th! (The pieces were premiered at Roulette earlier this year.)

-Began a new season with Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church as an alto. Concerts including early music, Mozart and Haydn, and the Verdi Requiem will be happening throughout the year.

-Participated in a residency at Penn State University for A Marvelous Order September 11-13. We worked on staging and movement (Patrick McCollum) that was gathered as footage for Josh Frankel to use as reference in his animations.

Upcoming highlights:

This weekend, September 21, from 4-6, I'm participating in an outdoor performance (free) of John Hasting's Passages | Pasajes in Dongan Lawn of Fort Tryon Park. 

October 28-31 in Washington D.C., Boston, and Brooklyn
Jonsi & Alex tour of Riceboy Sleeps

November 12, 8pm at Roulette
Neil Rolnick: Journey's End

November 23, 9:30pm at St. Peter's Episcopal Church as part of Blank Forms
Nate Wooley's Seven Storey Mountain VI
(I also wrangled together 20 great singers for this performance)

December 9, 8pm at Roulette
James Ilgenfritz, Anagram Ensemble 

QUARTET
(Performances by Gelsey Bell, Anaïs Maviel, Megan Schubert, and Yoon Sun Choi)
All world premieres by Gelsey Bell, Anaïs Maviel, and Megan Schubert
Sunday, March 3, at 8pm
at Roulette

Tickets
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In other news, while it's still available, you can check out the livestream of the performance of Steve Reich's Tehillim conducted by George Manahan 2/19/19 with Tactus, and sopranos Amber Evans, Shannyn Rinker, countertenor Luke Paulino, and "mezzo soprano" Megan Schubert.

2018 Highlights

-Recorded backing vocals on Charlie Looker’s album, Simple Answers (we later performed with full orchestra at the CD release in June at National Sawdust)

-Officially stepped into a new permanent position as a professional chorister with Fifth Avenue Presbyterian chamber choir. (Finally got to sing Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and Rachmaninoff’s Vespers in their entirety.)

-Returned as a quarter finalist at the American Traditions Competiton in Savannah, Georgia.

-Started workshopping pieces for QUARTET which will all premiere at Roulette March 3, 2019.

-Recorded a small part for the soundtrack, and got a sneak preview during the final editing process of Matthew Barney and Jonathan Bepler’s newest film, REDOUBT

-Revisited Schubert Lieder with pianist Amy Duran, and participated in a master class with Tom Muraco, an event organized by the Art Song Preservation Society

-Performed Louis Andriessen’s De Staat with Nina Faina Mutlu, Jamie Jordan, Mellisa Hughes, Axiom with Jeff Milarsky conducting. The composer was present for the dress and performance.

-Reprised a sneak peek of new material to come for Judd Greenstein’s opera, A Marvelous Order at LPR

-Dave’s Waves

-Submitted a song to three songwriting competitions. Already in the semi-finals for the International Song Competition. Will know if I advance in March 2019.

-Began prepping Gershon Kingsley’s unpublished and unperformed chamber works for distribution.

I've begun recording a few pieces that I'll periodically release on youtube through the remainder of the summer.
​Tonight, I've posted a vocal version of Florence B. Price's "Adoration", and Kenneth Gaburo's "Cantilena One"--a setting of Rabindranath Tagore's thirteenth Vaishnava Song. New(er) releases will also be posted on this youtube playlist. There's no rhyme or reason to this curation of classical music beyond carving out a personal, non-cynical "sharing is caring" space in spite of this current sociopolitical climate. 

(The backdrops are close-ups of my own painting.)

Upcoming highlights:

August 15, 9:00pm 
with Charlie Looker Ensemble and Daisy Press
Union Pool, 484 Union Ave, Brooklyn

September 27, 7:00pm
Solo recital with Bennington faculty guests
Deane Carriage Barn, Bennington College, VT

September 29, 8:00PM 
Annea Lockwood's "Bayou-Borne, for Pauline" with Christian Wolff (percussion), Ross Karre (percussion), Nate Wooley (trumpet), Michael Pisaro (electric guitar), and Jessica Pavone (viola). 
ISSUE PROJECT ROOM, 22 Boerum Place, Brooklyn

November 15, 8:00pm
world premieres of Alison Nowak's "The White Birds" and Tina Davidson's "Spring After Spring"
Deane Carriage Barn, Bennington College, VT

Add. info on Past Spring/Summer '17 Highlights:

In April, I premiered Emiliano Branda's "Queens Anthem" at the Queens Museum as part of "Protest Forms: Memory and Celebration: Part II" for the opening of Marinella Senatore's exhibition.  

​In May, I had the opportunity to revisit curation for an evening at St. Lydia's Church in Brooklyn for Angela Morris's Brackish Series. which happens monthly. All the short sets were centered on text and the voice, dance, and music. I had the great good fortune of working with and presenting these wonderful artists:

First Set: improvising with Dafna Naphtali (voice, Max MSP), Sarah Bernstein (voice, viola), Martita Abril (dance) --all original texts by each of the musicians (and yours truly), in addition to Adrienne Rich's "What Kind of Times Are These"

Second Set: Jasmine Wilson (voice, composition, text), Anjna Swaminathan (Carnatic violin), Maria Grand (saxophones), and Martita Abril (dance).

Third Set: Sasha Zamler-Carhart (voice, texts by Afro-Panamaian poets), Jesse Greenberg (glockenspiel), and Quilan Arnold (dance).

Fourth Set: Anaïs Maviel (voice, percussion), Asiya Wadud (spoken word, text), and Shantelle Jackson (dance).

In June, I was involved in 6 dance pieces as composer and/or performer in the culmination of Wally Cardona, and Jennifer Lacey's 5-year project, THE SET UP in collaboration with master dancers I Nyoman Catra (Balinese Topeng) Proeung Chhieng (Cambodian), Junko Fisher (Okinawan), Saya Lei (Mandalay-style, classical Burmese), Jean-Christophe Paré (French baroque), Kapila Venu (Indian Kutiyattam) and Heni Winahyuningsih (Javanese refined) on Governor's Island. 

Recent: 
February: First go at American Traditions Competition in Savannah Georgia

3/18 8:30pm at The Stone: Denman Maroney's "Claudius Smith" with Lisa Karrer, David Simons and Ratzo Harris

​Upcoming:
4/9 4:00pm at The Queens Museum: Opening for Marinella Senatore's Protest Forms: Memory and Celebration Part II

4/14 8:30pm at The Knockdown Center: Charlie Looker's "What Dawn is This" 

4/17 10:00pm at 65Fen: Trio with Andie Springer and Devin Gray

5/3 6:30pm at Williams Club: Screening and talk for A Marvelous Order (Schubert plays Jane Jacobs)

5/6 7:00pm at National Sawdust: Sophia Subbaya Vastek's CD release

5/18 8:00pm at St. Lydia's Church, Brooklyn: Angela Morris' BRACKISH SERIES, curated evening of collabs with musicians, poets and dancers

JUNE: RIVER TO RIVER FESTIVAL TBA dates and times on Governor's Island for Wally Cardona and Jennifer Lacey's THE SETUP with Jonathan Bepler