John Zorn The Holy Visions

national | arts and media | event notice Sunday September 16, 2012 12:17 by Eamonn - Louth Contemporary Music

John Zorn The Holy Visions featuring the Irish Debut of iconic composer and instrumentalist John Zorn. Thursday 4 October and Friday 5 October Dundalk, Louth Ireland

Mr. Zorn is a towering pillar of a new-music universe he has worked tirelessly to foster and enrich. The New York Times

Louth Contemporary Music Society celebrates the first Irish visit of New York based iconic composer and instrumentalist John Zorn in a mini-festival entitled John Zorn The Holy Visions on 4 and 5 October 2012. The Holy Visions features three performances including two world premieres of Zorn’s music.

John Zorn is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Drawing on his experience in a variety of genres including jazz, rock, classical, klezmer, film, cartoon, popular and improvised music, John Zorn has created an influential body of work that defies academic categories.

“I have ever been the kind of composer who can write on demand, nor one who writes daily as a matter of course. Composing for me is a sacred trust, a journey into the unknown, a mystical experience-not a job-… The time frame is often long, but the decision to actually put pen to paper is always spontaneous and mysteriously unexplainable.” John Zorn

The mini-festival opens with John Zorn in conversation in An Tain Theatre, Dundalk Louth on 4 October 2012 at 7.45pm. This event is only Only open to those who have purchased tickets for Cyro Baptista's concert on Thursday 4 October 2012 in An Tain Theatre, Dundalk, Louth.

Zorn’s long time collaborator, the world-renowned Brazilian percussionist Cyro Baptista and his group Banquet of the Spirits, will perform music from their latest cd Caym: The Book of Angels which interprets Zorn’s sublime Masada songbook dedicated to the Jewish diaspora with a Brazilian and middle eastern twist. Banquet of the Spirits’ concert takes place on Thursday 4 October 2012 at 8pm in An Tain Theatre Dundalk.

The following evening at 8pm on Friday 5 October 2012, Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart will perform an astonishingly beautiful new Zorn vocal work The Holy Visions —a mystery play in eleven strophes — concerning the life, work and philosophy of Hildegard von Bingen for five female voices (2012) in St.Nicholas’ Church of Ireland Dundalk. The EQ Ensemble conducted by Gavin Moloney will open Friday’s concert with a world premiere performance of Zorn’s work Missa Sine Voces (2012),a beautiful instrumental miniature for five players written in the form of a Requiem Mass.

Performed as an encore to the Holy Visions concert earlier in the evening ( Friday 5 October 2012), Zorn returns to his first instrument for a very rare event—his first solo organ concert in Ireland when he will bring his compositional mind and improvisation skills to the beautiful Willis organ at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dundalk. The organ recital will take place in St. Patrick’s Cathedral Dundalk at 10.00 pm on Friday 5 October 2012.

This organ recital is a FREE event to those who have purchased tickets for one or more of the Zorn concerts in Dundalk on 4 or 5 October 2012. Please retain your paid for Zorn concert ticket as it will be required to gain admission to this free event. One paid ticket provides you with one free admission. Seating is unallocated. Contact Eamonn Quinn eamonn@louthcms.org to confirm your place and also to allow us to estimate numbers who will attend. Please direct any queries to Eamonn Quinn eamonn@louthcms.org

John Zorn The Holy Visions is presented by Louth Contemporary Music Society. Louth Contemporary Music Society is financially supported by the Arts Council and Create Louth.

LISTINGS INFORMATION

Cyro Baptista’s Banquet of the Spirits plays John Zorn’s Book of Angels
8pm on Thursday 4 October 2012
An Tain Theatre, The Town Hall, Dundalk
Tickets: €20/Concessions €15
Tel: 00 353 42 939 2919.
Email: antaintheatre@dundalktown.ie

The Holy Visions
Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart
EQ Ensemble
8pm on Friday 5 October 2012
St. Nicholas Church of Ireland Dundalk
Tickets €20/Concessions €15
www.centralticketbureau.com
ROI: 0818 205 205

UK: 0870 850 2896
Also available from An Tain Theatre Box Office: 00 353 42 9392919

Solo Organ Recital
John Zorn
10pm on Friday 5 October 2012
St. Patrick’s Cathedral Dundalk
This organ recital is a FREE event to those who have purchased tickets for one or more of the Zorn concerts in Dundalk on 4 or 5 October 2012. Please
retain your paid for Zorn concert ticket as it will be required to gain admission to this free event. One paid ticket provides you with one free admission. Seating is unallocated. Contact Eamonn Quinn eamonn@louthcms.org to confirm your place and also to allow us to estimate numbers who will attend. Please direct any queries to Eamonn Quinn eamonn@louthcms.org

Cyro Baptista will also give a percussion workshop for Music Generation Louth on Friday 5 October 2012. Cyro's workshop is now full booked

Biographies
John Zorn
Drawing on his experience in a variety of genres including jazz, rock, hardcore punk, classical, klezmer, film, cartoon, popular and improvised music, John Zorn has created an influential body of work that defies academic categories. A native of New York City, he has been a central figure in the downtown scene since 1975, incorporating a wide range of musicians in various compositional formats. His work is remarkably diverse and eclectic, drawing inspiration from Art, Literature, Film, Theatre, Philosophy and Mysticism as well as Music. He founded the Tzadik label in 1995, runs the East Village performance space The Stone and has edited/published five volumes of musician's writings under the title ARCANA. Early inspirations include American innovators Ives, Varese, Cage, Carter and Partch, the European tradition of Berg, Stravinsky, Boulez and Kagel, soundtrack composers Herrmann, Morricone and Stalling as well as avant-garde theater, film, art and literature.

He has been awarded the William Schuman Award for composition from Columbia University, the Cultural Achievement Award from the Foundation for Jewish Culture and is a MacArthur Fellow.

He tours extensively with his various ensembles, playing a great variety of music and his works are performed worldwide by rock bands, improvisers, jazz musicians and classical ensembles. He has received numerous commissions from among others, the Kronos Quartet, the New York Philharmonic, EOS Orchestra, Netherlands Wind Ensemble, Brooklyn Philharmonic, Bayerischer Staatsoper, WDR Orchestra Koln and American pianist Stephen Drury.

Cyro Baptista
“The man the stars call when they want that otherworldly flavor in the mix…” – Time Out New York
Born and raised in São Paulo, Baptista has been a major force in world music for three decades, touring and recording with luminaries such as Yo-Yo Ma (The Brazil Project), Herbie Hancock (Gershwin’s World), Paul Simon (Rhythm of the Saints) and Wynton Marsalis (Brazilian Carnaval) to name a few.

Since arriving in the U.S. in 1980 from his native country Brazil, Cyro Baptista has emerged as one of the premier percussionists in the country. Coinciding with the rise in the public’s interest of world music, Cyro has managed to record and tour with some of music’s most popular names. His mastery of Brazilian percussion and the many instruments he creates himself, have catapulted him into world renown.
With his own project, the percussion and dance ensemble known as 'Beat the Donkey' Cyro gives free reign to his imagination, mixing his tremendous musical skills, his natural humor and theatrical ways with instruments from Brazil, Middle East, Indonesia, Africa and US.Cyro's credits read like a "Who’s Who" of modern music. He toured extensively with Yo-Yo Ma's Brazil Project, Trey Anastasio's Band (of Phish), John Zorn's Electric Masada, Herbie Hancock's Grammy award winning "Gershwin’s World", Sting and Paul Simon's "Rhythm of the Saints".

Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart
They are researchers, discoverers, adventurers and idealists. Their partners are specialist ensembles and radio orchestras, opera houses and the free theater scene, electronic studios and countless organizers of contemporary music festivals and concert series in the world.

The Neue Vocalsolisten established as an ensemble specializing in the interpretation of contemporary vocal music in 1984. Founded under the artistic management of Musik der Jahrhunderte, the vocal chamber ensemble has been artistically independent since the year 2000. Each of the seven concert and opera soloists, with a collective range reaching from coloratura soprano over countertenor to "basso profondo", shapes the work on chamber music and the co-operation with the composers and other interpreters through his/her distinguished artistic creativity.

According to the musical requirements a pool of specialist singers complements the basic team. The ensemble’s chief interest lies on research: exploring new sounds, new vocal techniques and new forms of articulation, whereby great emphasis is placed on establishing a dialogue with composers. Each year, the ensemble premiers about twenty new works. Central to the group’s artistic concept are the areas of music theater and the interdisciplinary work with electronics, video, visual arts and literature, as well as the juxtaposition of contrasting elements found in ancient and contemporary music.

Caption: Video Id: OIIfFcu0r4k Type: Youtube Video
Cyro Baptista plays John Zorn