William Burroughs' CUT-UP Experiments Inspire 11 Composers' New Vocal Works, 10/16 at The Stone

Experiments in Opera -- the composer-driven collective with an air of mad scientists in the lab -- opens its 2015-16 season with the premiere of 11 new commissions for ensemble and voice in The Travel Agency is On Fire: Burroughs Cuts Up the Great Bards, presented Friday, October 16, 2015 at the East Village avant-garde haven The Stone.

Two sets take place at 8:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. Each set features different songs. The Stone is located at the corner of Avenue C and 2nd Street. $15 General Admission for each set at the door. Visit www.experimentsinopera.com/burroughs for more information.

Featuring 11 world premiere commissioned songs by JASON CADY • NATACHA DIELS • ANNE GUTHRIE • JAMES ILGENFRITZ • TRAVIS JUST • LUKAS LIGETI • CHARLIE LOOKER • ELLIOTT SHARP • AARON SIEGEL • JG THIRLWELL • KATIE YOUNG, performed by James Ilgenfritz's Anagram Ensemble, Michael Douglas Jones, Amirtha Kidambi, Meagan Schubert, and Vince B. Vincent, vocalists.

From EiO's Founders: "We see our work as connected to the storied tradition of American Experimentalism. Among literary figures in that vein, Burroughs is unique. His voice embodies both the intellectual and transgressive attitudes of experimental arts-a perfect foundation for the kind of multi-composer events we like to produce. Burroughs' cut-up texts are tricky to set because they have no real 'lines' in them. The words are like objects slapped together, with no clear patterns or sense of one word leading into another. While this disrupts the usual business of language conveying meaning, it also presents the composers with manifold opportunities to be playful or manipulative. We worked with Anagram Ensemble's James Ilgenfritz to identify composers in a range of styles and backgrounds. Lots of them have experience with improvisation, extended techniques and theater, which should work well in Burroughs' post-modernist playground." - Jason, Aaron and Matthew

Renegade William S. Burroughs (1914-1997) has been called the Godfather of the Beat Generation, known for his hallucinatory prose and startling, nontraditional accounts of drug culture, most famously in the book Naked Lunch. Norman Mailer declared him "the only American writer who may be conceivably possessed by genius." Jack Kerouac named him the "greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift." His strange and fascinating life is documented here.

Burroughs helped to pioneer the art form of cut-ups: repurposing of previously published materials into new art forms. After selecting the source texts, Burroughs cut them up, and juxtaposed the fragments to select random word combinations and create new compositions. In celebration of the recently published book, The Travel Agency on Fire (edited by Alex Wermer Colan)-a selection of cut-up experiments by Burroughs on texts by a range of canonical writers, including Arthur Rimbaud, William Shakespeare, and James Joyce-EiO has commissioned 11 new vocal works from composers Travis Just, Charlie Looker, Jason Cady, Aaron Siegel, James Ilgenfritz, Anne Guthrie, Lukas Ligeti, Katie Young, JG Thirlwell, Elliott Sharp, and Natacha Diels.

Each composer was challenged by their assigned Burroughs cut-up to reorganize their own musical work around non-linear narratives, and embrace a logic of sound and experience.

The evening's performers include James Ilgenfritz's Anagram Ensemble with vocalists Michael Douglas Jones, Amirtha Kidambi, Meagan Schubert, and Vince B. Vincent.

Sample Burroughs text:
CUT UP WITH KEROUAC 1971

hunger of fruitful subrubs cloak of youth and innocence promised him
suitable wolf mates in Moscow mechanical cherries are frozen in
other words when I wrote these books and thought the manuscript
would be discovered after I am dead on the roads of time electric
stings lash at the cymbals of the sky I will be there in the funeral street
this can be inferred from enigmatic collaboration dead Gods vomit
the birth place on the tender criminal so there I am at dawn in
some one elses body and it gets very cold outside in winter

The Program:

Jason Cady
Cut Up With Catcher In The Rye (JD Salinger)

Natacha Diels
Let The And Such Be (John Perse)

Anne Guthrie
Even The Stains Pale (F. Scott Fitzgerald)

James Ilgenfritz
I Kiss The So-Called Dawn (Arthur Rimbaud)

Travis Just
Kiss Me (Thin Air) (William Shakespeare)

Charlie Looker
Out Of Man (Jean Genet)

Elliott Sharp
Rebus Cog Oh Jury (James Joyce)

Aaron Siegel
Flesh Mr. Martin (Arthur Rimbaud)

Katie Young
real real real red (Jack Kerouac)

JG Thirlwell
The Travel Agency is On Fire (Anthony Burgess)

Lukas Ligeti
TBD (Romantic Poets Anthology)

About Experiments in Opera - Co-founded in 2010 by a trio of "talented, fearless, and congenial" (The Brooklyn Rail) composer-performers in Brooklyn-Matthew Welch, Jason Cady, and Aaron Siegel-EXPERIMENTS IN OPERA is a composer-driven initiative, featuring recent and new works with innovative answers to the traditional questions about how to connect words, story and music.

EiO's work is playful and funny as well as serious and dark. They catalyze opportunities that make strong connections to life and art in the twenty first century. EiO makes no meaningful distinction between the merit of short works and long works, full productions and concert presentations, live works and works on video. Artists from a variety of styles and backgrounds find common cause with their efforts and feel at home in their productions.

Since 2011, Experiments in Opera has produced 37 new works, collaborating with over 100 performers, designers and directors from the New York City artist community. Experiments in Opera has presented the work of more than 26 composers including Georges Aperghis, Robert Ashley, Gelsey Bell, Roddy Bottum, the Cough Button collective, Jason Cady, Joe Diebes, Ruby Fulton, Nick Hallett, Gabrielle Herbst, Sam Hillmer, John King, Mary Kouyoumdjian, Daniel Kushner, Jonathan Mitchell, Jessica Pavone, Paul Pinto, Dave Ruder, Aaron Siegel, Justin Tierney, Leaha Maria Villarreal, Matthew Welch and John Zorn.

Over the last four years, EiO has produced its events at Abrons Arts Center, Le Poisson Rouge, Spectrum, Roulette, and Issue Project Room.

EiO's subversive impulses and numerous commissions from both rising and established composers has led The New Criterion to hail the organization as "a vital part of the subculture." The 2015-16 season alone will see 20 world premiere vocal works, from newcomers such as Emily Manzo to experimental master Elliott Sharp.

This current year, in addition to performances at The Stone and Anthology Film Archives, EiO will continue to organize What Goes On, an annual publication that features writings on and about contemporary opera, written and edited by other creators of contemporary opera.

All of the work developed with Experiments in Opera is documented extensively in videos, images and writings that are available in an online catalogue at experimentsinopera.com. These insightful looks into the origins of artists' ideas and their working habits help to support EiO's mission of building a more robust conversation about how and why opera works the way it does.

Experiments in Opera Upcoming Events:

December 12, 2015, 8:00 p.m.
Matthew Welch Chamber Operas
The Stone, at the corner of Avenue C and 2nd Street
$20 General Admission at the door
Blarvuster
Mantra Percussion
Vocalists: Anne Rhodes, Daniel Neer, Kate Maroney, Jeffrey Gavett

April 2016 (Exact Dates TBA)
Video Operas
Anthology Film Archives, 32 2nd Ave
$10 General Admission
Composers: Matana Roberts, Jason Cady, Aaron Siegel, Matthew Welch, Emily Manzo, Anna Mikhailova

July 28, 2016, 8:00 p.m.
Experimental Choral Works
The Stone, at the corner of Avenue C and 2nd Street
$15 General Admission at the door
Ghostlight Chorus
Composers: Jason Cady, Jessica Pavone, Aaron Siegel, Matthew Welch