Ensemble Pi Presents New Concert BANNED BOOKS in May

Ensemble Pi has announced Banned Books, presented by the Music & Recorded Sound Division at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Banned Books is an evening-length performance of six premieres commissioned by Ensemble Pi in response to recent U.S. bills, which ban books or curtail the discussion of critical race theory, LGBTQ+ issues, antisemitism and other disputed topics in public schools and libraries.

Taking inspiration from New York Times bestselling author Azar Nafisi's Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times - a galvanizing guide to literature as an act of resistance - the concert aims to draw awareness to these oppressive practices while opening a space through music for reflection and connection. A diverse group of composers were asked to create pieces influenced by a particular banned book that resonated with them. The concert will be followed by a question-and-answer session with the composers about their work and featured books.

Ensemble Pi's artistic director Idith Meshulam Korman says, "While the emotions and discussions provoked by these performances may at times be difficult, we believe that music is most powerful when it pushes people beyond their comfort zones, urges them to consider new perspectives, and actively elicits change. With this concert, we highlight the needs and experiences of communities and people whose storylines are being banned, as well as those of the librarians and public-school teachers now being forced to enact these bans or suffer the consequences."

Curator of Music & Recorded Sound Division Kevin Parks says, "We're thrilled to host Ensemble Pi for the premiere of these new pieces highlighting the troubling trend of banning these incredibly important books. Censorship is a dangerous trend in US politics, and goes against the NYPL's mission to provide free and accessible information to the public. At the Music and Recorded Sound Division, we also believe that music is a powerful tool to address important issues-Ensemble Pi combines these two efforts beautifully, and we couldn't be happier to partner with them."

Since 2002, the socially conscious new-music collective Ensemble Pi has been commissioning living composers to create work addressing a wide range of complex and challenging subjects from South Africa's apartheid and Israel-Palestinian relationships to America's troubled relationship with guns and the nation's deeply flawed system of mass incarceration.

Ensemble Pi's Banned Books will take place on Monday, May 15 from 6 to 7:30 pm. The Music and Recorded Sound Division at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts is located at 40 Lincoln Center Plaza, NYC (entrance at 111 Amsterdam between 64th and 65th). This event is free; however, registration is required. To register, please visit:
https://www.nypl.org/events/programs/2023/05/15/reading-dangerously-ensemble-pi
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/reading-dangerously-with-ensemble-pi-tickets-574733923637

ABOUT THE PROGRAM:

Richard Brooks' And Tango Makes Three (2023; 10 mins.)
Piano, violin, cello, B-flat clarinet, percussion and narrator
Inspired by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell's children book of the same name, with illustration by Henri Cole.

Intended for young readers, And Tango Makes Three is based on an actual incident which took place in New York City's Central Park Zoo. Quite unexpectedly two male penguins bonded as a couple, hatched an egg ("borrowed" by a zookeeper from another nest) and hatched it. The zookeepers named the chick "Tango" as it takes two to tango. Across the country this book has been the target of ultra-conservatives trying to ban it from school libraries. Musically, the composition exploits both tonal and atonal materials, as well as occasional onomatopoeic effects.

Louis Goldford's Truth is What Is (2023; 5 mins.)
Voice, piano, violin, cello, clarinet, percussion, electronics
Inspired by stand-up comic Lenny Bruce's texts

"Many years ago," Louis Goldford says, "as I was working on another piece based on themes of censorship and banned books, I had the good fortune to meet the poet David Clewell. Seeking his guidance, David advised me on a number of texts. Always a child of the 1960s, David also suggested that I check out the late standup routines of Lenny Bruce, whose obscenity conviction in 1964 led to a major freedom of speech campaign. I wasn't able to use Lenny's words at that time, and sadly, David left us in 2020. I dedicate this piece to David's memory."

Laura Jobin-Acosta's New Kid (2023; 6 mins.)
Piano, violin, cello, clarinet and baritone
Inspired by Jerry Craft's graphic novel of the same name

New Kid tells the story of an African American boy experiencing culture shock in a new private school. The book was accused of promoting critical race theory and got banned, but the judgment was later overturned after protests by parents and students. Multi-cultural composer Jobin-Acosta says, "The book reminded me of my own upbringing in a small, mostly white town in Colorado. I was that 'new kid' and I didn't ever feel like I fully fit in or was accepted during those years. Reading this allowed me to emotionally connect with a younger version of myself in a nurturing way. It helped me see how I found a way to deal with my own feelings of 'differentness.'"

Laura Kaminsky's Reading Nafisi (2023; 12 mins.)
Piano, cello, clarinet
Inspired by Azar Nafisi's Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times

Iranian-American author Azar Nafisi's belief in engaging with the opposition and continuously assessing and reassessing our own positions to transcend prejudices of time and place served as a point of entry for composer Laura Kaminsky's trio. "The piano, cello and clarinet are first muted to evoke what happens when ideas (and the words that give them expression, and the books in which they are printed) are squashed, redacted or banned, but struggle, nonetheless to speak truth and to inspire and empower the reader," Kaminsky says. "The ensuing music is alternately an explosive anger against repression, a wistful yearning and nostalgia for that which has been subjugated, and a plea for that which is yet to be attained."

Tamar Muskal's The Banned (2023; 7 mins.)
Violin, cello, piano, marching machine and soundtrack
Inspired by Art Spiegelman's graphic novel Maus

In Maus, American cartoonist Art Spiegelman interviews his father on his experiences as a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. Despite its widespread critical acclaim (the graphic novel was serialized from 1980 to 1991), Maus was recently pulled from Texas library shelves because of nudity (of animals) and profanity, bringing up debates over convenient whitewashing of tragic historic events. The composition captures a range of emotions from fear and anger to hope, includes a soundtrack of fire sounds as reference to the Nazi book burning in Nazi Germany and Austria of 1930s. At the end of the piece, the music "calls" the audience to celebrate the freedom of speech by never removing books from the shelves.

Damian Norfleet's Praise Pecola! (2023; 3:30 mins.)
Duet for bass clarinet and voice
Inspired by Toni Morrison's novel The Bluest Eye

In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl who is consistently abused and discarded due to her "ugliness," yearns for the blonde hair and blue eyes that will make her "beautiful" and accepted by society. The eulogistic composition Praise Pecola! begins as an address at a fictitious funeral for Pecola Breedlove and develops into a genuine message from Damian to white supremacists.

PERFORMERS:
Alexis Gerlach, cello; Moran Katz, clarinet; Idith Meshulam Korman, piano; Damian Norfleet, voice and narration; Bill Trigg, percussion; Airi Yoshioka, violin