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Medicine Show Theatre Presents Three Voices, June 17-18

By: Jun. 06, 2005
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Morton Feldman's Three Voices will receive a concert staging on June 17th and 18th at the Medicine Show Theatre. Performed by soprano Beth Griffith, Three Voices is being presented in conjunction with Medicine Show's theatrical production of The Republic Of Poetry.

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American composer Feldman conceived Three Voices to be performed by three identical soprano voices: a live singer performs one voice while the other two are played back on tape over loudspeakers placed on either side of her. According to author Paul van Emmerick, the loudspeakers are meant to represent the tombstones of painter Philip Guston and poet Frank O'Hara. "The composition is thus a metaphor for a conversation of a 'living voice with the voices of the dead', and is thereby not just a memorial to Guston and O'Hara, but also a dirge for the generation of artists to which Feldman belonged."

Feldman, who died in 1987, was a contemporary of John Cage. Under Cage's influence," states a press article, "Feldman began to write pieces which had no relation to compositional systems of the past, such as the constraints of traditional harmony or the standard system of musical notation. Feldman was inspired by abstract expressionist painters such as Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollack as well as poet Frank O' Hara."

Griffith's solo recording of Feldman's Three Voices was awarded the Preis der deutschen Schallplatten Kritik (German Record Critics Prize) in 1989. She originally sang the European premiere of Three Voices at a Feldman Festival in Cologne, Germany, which led to Feldman inviting her to perform it again at a New Music America festival, the first of dozens of worldwide invitations to follow. Griffith has sung in festivals in Darmstadt, Witten, Bratislava, Brussels, Dublin, London, La Rochelle, Moscow, Paris, Prague and Warsaw. She has appeared with Sequentia, Musikfabrik, Ensemble13, L'Art pour L'Art, Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Paris Nouvel Orchestra Philharmonique and has worked with composers Cage, Feldman, Mauricio Kagel and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

The Medicine Show Theatre Ensemble was founded in 1970 by Barbara Vann and the late James Barbosa. The company is dedicated to offering creative alternatives to conventional theatre by creating and presenting works that experiment with language, music, movement, form and ideas. The works are chosen to delight the mind, honor creativity, confound empty convention, encourage active compassion and present the many facets of the American experience within a global community."

Each performance of Three Voices will begin with William Hellermann of the DownTown Ensemble performing a short reading of the writings of Feldman.

The Republic of Poetry is a suite of original short verse plays about "love, war and some places in-between" that will run from June 9th-June 26th (Thursdays-Sundays at 8:00 PM). Conceived by Obie-Award winner Vann and directed by Vann as well as Aaron Beall, Nicole Colbert and Stelios Manolakakis, the evening comprises the work of 11 poets, each of whom has written a short verse play especially for the project ranging from 2 to 20 minutes in length.

The Medicine Show Theatre is located at 549 West 52nd St., 3rd Floor (between 10th and 11th Ave.). Tickets for both Three Voices and Republic of Poetry are $15, and $10 for the concert alone. Reservations are available by calling the theatre at (212) 262-4216 . For more information, please visit www.medicineshowtheatre.org.





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