James and I are headed to this on the 15th. For the art crowd, you may have heard of Ichiyanagi's wife from 1956-63, Yoko Ono.

Ensemble Origin at Zankel Hall
March 14th and 15th, 7:30pm

Featuring the Shinnyo-En Chorus of Japan and Music by the Seminal Japanese Avant-Garde Composer Toshi Ichiyanagi, Ensemble Origin’s Founder and Artistic Director

Presented with support of The Japan Foundation
and the cooperation of the Consulate General of Japan in New York
and the Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies at Columbia University.

Sponsored by Shinnyo-En

In 1998, fifty years into a storied career, the Japanese composer Toshi
Ichiyanagi undertook an ambitious project with a two-part mission: to
reconstruct ancient instruments preserved in Japan and to employ them in the
creation of a new kind of music. He and a diverse network of collaborators
would present the music‹performed on the restored Silk Road instruments‹in
concerts around the world. By 2006, with assistance from the Buddhist order
Shinnyo-en (as part of their contribution to the arts), the project had
succeeded in recreating 14 kinds of ancient musical instruments, including
examples from China and other parts of Asia, and in assembling a team of
musicians who could play those instruments, under the name Ensemble Origin.

Meghan McGeary as Hannah

I wrote about an extraordinary musical theater work called "The Blue Flower" in early 2003. A quote:

The historical context and references range from the events leading to WW I, the Weimar Republic, a fictionalized menage of Franz Marc, Max Beckmann, Hannah Höch, and Marie Curie, plus Dada. Part of it takes place at the Cabaret Voltaire -- the last time Zurich was really interesting.

There is a new production running through March 2nd at The West End Theater (86th and Broadway). Visit www.theblueflower.org or go here to buy tickets.

Visit their myspace page to hear some of the music.

[the image above is from the Blue Flower's website]

James and I don't only follow the purely visual arts. We attend a lot of theater, dance, and other performance. The next few weeks have a lot of things of interest. I'll do several posts with recommendations, but this one is really important, and has a visual component too. Come see it with us on the 1st.

Ensemble Pi: The Rest is Silence

Saturday March 1st, 2008 at 8pm
Tickets at the door $15.

Venue:
The Great Hall at Cooper Union
7 East 7th Street at Third Avenue
map

Program:

• William Kentridge, Philip Miller: Two Shorts from Nine Projections featuring a live performance of original score for string quartet, trumpet and piano (2003)
• Frederic Rzewski: Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier, for piano (2003) U.S. premiere
• John Harbison: Abu Ghraib, for cello and piano (2006) N.Y. premiere
• Kristin Norderval: Far From Home, for two voices and computer-generated sound (2007)
• Dmitri Shostakovich: Piano trio No 2 in E minor, opus 67 (1944)

Guest Speaker: Naomi Wolf, author: The End of America

[image at top is Eyal Danieli, invitation for Ensemble Pi]