Amphibian Presents NY Premiere of ROPE AND CHASM, Featuring Re'ut Ben-Ze'ev, Tonight
By: BWW News Desk May. 02, 2013
Amphibian presents the New York premiere of Matthew Greenbaum's Rope and Chasm, an evening-length work for mezzo-soprano and video animation based on Nietzsche's Also Sprach Zarathustra featuring Re'ut Ben-Ze'ev. It is made up of a series of episodes in which the mezzo sings with a pre-recorded musical score and interacts with numerous video characters, including a leech expert, a tightrope walker, and a half-mole, half-human "spirit of gravity." Greenbaum is both the composer and video animator. Rope and Chasm was premiered in its entirety by Network for New Music in Philadelphia, 2012.
"If Friedrich Nietzsche's Also Sprach Zarathustra was one of the most radical literary experiments of its time, Matthew Greenbaum's Rope and Chasm continues to push the envelope of experimental multi-genre realms. A total assault on the senses, Rope and Chasm creatively integrates opera, video animation, electronic music and philosophical thought, demanding total attention from the listener/viewer. Mezzo-Soprano Re'ut Ben-Ze'ev brilliantly sings the role of Zarathustra, bringing to life the dense texts of Nietzsche and making multiple dramatic connections between the visual and musical elements." - Linda Reichert, Director, Network for New Music
AMPHIBIAN, curated by the composer/video artist Matthew Greenbaum, provides a forum for new music and video art.
The presentation will be held tonight, May 2, 2013 8pm at The Hi Art! Gallery
227 West 29th Street (between 7th and 8th Avenues), New York, NY. Admission: $15/$10 Students & Seniors. Subways: 1, 2, 3, A, C or E to 34th Street/Penn Station; B, D, F, M, N, Q or R to 34th Street/Herald Square.
Matthew Greenbaum was born in New York City in 1950. He studied composition with Stefan Wolpe and Mario Davidovsky and holds a Ph.D. from the CUNY Graduate Center.
Greenbaum's awards, fellowships and commissions include the Serge Koussevitzky Music Fund/Library of Congress, the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Meet the Composer, the Fromm Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund, the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Penn Council on the Arts.
Performances of his works include the Darmstadt Summer Festival, the Leningrad Spring Festival, the Jakarta Festival (Indonesia), Hallische Musiktage, Ensemble SurPlus (Freiburg), Nuova Consonanza (Rome), Ensemble 21 (Odense), the Da Capo Chamber Players, Cygnus, Parnassus, Fred Sherry, Marc-André Hamelin,
David Holzman, Stephanie Griffin, the Momenta Quartet, Network for New Music, the New York New Music Ensemble, the Group for Contemporary Music, Orchestra 2001, Christopher Taylor and the Riverside Symphony and the Houston Symphony.
His works are published by Tunbridge Music and the American Composers Alliance. Recordings are available from Antes and CRI. An all-Greenbaum recording is available on the Centaur label.
Greenbaum is also a video animation artist. Works in this medium include ROPE AND CHASM for mezzo and video animation, an hour-long setting of excerpts from Nietzsche's Also Sprach Zarathustra; AUTOMAT for video animation/electronic music, and BITS AND PIECES, for tenor sax and video animation.
Dr. Greenbaum is a professor of composition at Temple University. For more about Greenbaum, visit www.matthewgreenbaum.com.
Mezzo-Soprano Re'ut Ben-Ze'ev has won critical acclaim for her "intense expression and pure voice" (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, with) and "bold, committed account...so deeply physical was her performance..." (The New York Times).
Re'ut majored in Theater at the Thelma Yelin High school of Performing Arts, Tel Aviv, where she also toured as the vocal soloist of its Big Band. After moving to NYC and studying the Strasberg "Method" with Terese Hayden she decided to pursue a classical singing career. Her operatic roles include Anna (DIE SIEBEN TODSÜNDEN/Weill), Donna Elvira in Mozart's DON GIOVANNI, Paride in PARDIE ED ELENA/Gluck, Komponist (ARIADNE AUF NAXOS).
On the concert platform, Re'ut has performed in venues such as Lincoln Center, Spoleto Festival, USA, Jerusalem Music Centre, The American Academy in Berlin, Bayreuth Museum of Art, the Tel-Aviv Museum of Art, and for WQXR radio.
As a passionate champion of new music, Re'ut has performed and premiered many important new works by composers such as David Del Tredici, Samuel Adler and Dalit Warshaw in addition to recording with John Musto and Yehudi Wyner for Naxos, AlbanyRecords, Furious Artisans and YIVO label. She has collaborated with players of the Israel and Berlin Philharmonic, ensembles such as the Israel Contemporary Players (PIERROT LUNAIRE), Cygnus Ensemble, the actor Theodore Bikel and choreographer Yasmeen Godder (Ensemble nominated for the Bessie Award.)
In 2013/14 season, she will make her debut with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in the world premier of David Del Tredici's Dum Dee Tweedle under the baton of Leonard Slatkin.
Her standard concert repertoire ranges from Haydn's ARIANNA A NAXOS to Mozart's REQUIEM to Adler's NUPTIAL SCENE performed with St. Cecilia Chorus and Orchestra, The Israel Chamber Orchestra and others. Re'ut lives in NYC and studies with Gerald Martin Moore. For more, visit www.reutbenzeev.com.
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