International Contemporary Ensemble Premieres New Staging Of Du Yun's A COCKROACH'S TARANTELLA and ZOLLE

In continuing to shift and disrupt the operatic field, Pulitzer Prize-winner Du Yun has created two new staged versions of A Cockroach's Tarantella and Zolle with director Roscha A. Säidow and in collaboration with the International Contemporary Ensemble and Satomi Matsuzaki.

The two works will be presented jointly in an evening-length diptych at NYU Skirball on Friday, April 29, 2022 and Saturday, April 30, 2022 at 7:30pm. This version of the evening-length diptych is a reworking by Du Yun and Roscha A. Säidow of the Lucerne Theater production (October 2021) specifically for the Skirball stage.

Satomi Matsuzaki from Deerhoof, the prolific band that "conjures anxious garage funk, Tejano-infused noise rock, introspective dissonance, mercurial power pop, and just about everything in between" (Pitchfork), joins Du Yun as the lead character, The Wander Woman Ghost. They both give voice to a wandering dead woman through narration and singing. These two works navigate questions and emotions around home/homecoming, migration/movement, and transformation/transgression.

This program also kicks off the International Contemporary Ensemble's 20th anniversary season, a homecoming. Zolle, originally written in 2005, is Du Yun's first chamber opera and one of the first operas the Ensemble collaborated on in its formative years. The work, which centers around themes of belonging, migration, and identity, will also be the inspiration for SOUND IS AN OPENING, a series of community-engaged events curated by interdisciplinary artist and Ensemble Director of Individual Giving eddy kwon featuring the artists of Zolle, as well as new and longtime collaborators of the Ensemble with dynamic and varied connections to diaspora.

For 20 years, the International Contemporary Ensemble has been a home for experimental new music, the artists who make it, and the community that supports it. The Ensemble's vision of artistic homebuilding is clearly reflected in Du Yun's personal trajectory - having been a founding member of the Ensemble in 2001, winning awards and accolades such as the Pulitzer Prize, and most recently a leader on the Ensemble's board of directors.

In Zolle, a staged chamber opera, a dead woman wanders through the shadowy space on the border between memory and reality, tracing the lines of her identity through the land she once walked - an immigrant in death as in life. A music narrative in which the audience bears witness to a wandering spirit exploring and contemplating her own multitude of identities and remembrance of her past life. As she travels between worlds of life and afterlife, she cannot choose between the living and the dead, unable to let go of either. Filled with sorrow and peace, she finally lets go by turning into a part of the earth. A Cockroach's Tarantella, for string quartet and narrator, reflects on corporeality, human desire, religion, and belonging as the essential quest and the existential dread that all sentient beings experience, cockroach or not.

The pieces complement each other in their exploration of the human soul and the seeking of answers on the topic of identity and heritage - A Cockroach's Tarantella as the "life-before" and Zolle the "after-life." Scored for a chamber ensemble, voice, and spoken word, with Du Yun as narrator and featuring Satomi Matsuzaki as singer, these works together probe humankind's ubiquitous fascination with movement and alienation, amidst the hope of belonging.

Du Yun mentions that the piece serves as a reflection of her own experiences as an immigrant living in America: "this piece was scored for the female voice and a narration - two voices of the same character which both embody who she is. When I'm creating, it feels that the ideas and emotions are very heightened but then the words fail at that total expression. A character that has both narration and singing embodies what I think most immigrants are experiencing - 'how can you manifest these complex emotional subtleties with both entities, with words and with music?'"

In 2021 LA Opera created a digital short of three chapters of Zolle entitled The Zolle Suite with the International Contemporary Ensemble and Du Yun. When recording this piece, Du Yun mentions how surprised she was to feel the same. "I was an international student at the time of writing, and I am an Asian American now. Revisiting and re-recording this story after a decade, it still rings true-the calling of the homeland and the pull of migration," she says. "This piece is about belonging and also questioning about belonging. That was what propelled me to write this story and it really holds a very dear place in my heart."

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Program Information
Du Yun's A Cockroach's Tarantella and Zolle
Friday, April 29, 2022 at 7:30pm
Saturday, April 30, 2022 at 7:30pm
NYU Skirball | 566 LaGuardia Pl | New York, NY 10012
Tickets: https://nyuskirball.org/events/du-yun-international-contemporary-ensemble-zolle-cockroachs-tarantella

Du Yun - A Cockroach's Tarantella (2010) for string quartet, electronics, and narrator
Du Yun, voice, sound design
Josh Modney, violin
Pauline Harris, violin
Hannah Levinson, viola
Mariel Roberts, cello
Kamna Gupta, conductor

Du Yun - Zolle (2005) chamber opera
Du Yun, The Wander Woman Ghost (Narrator/Voice)*
Satomi Matsuzaki, The Same Wander Woman Ghost (Voice/Narrator)*
eddy kwon, The Land-Watcher
Ziad Nehme, The Land-Watcher (Recorded Tenor)
Alice Teyssier, flute
Ryan Muncy, saxophone
Nathan Davis, percussion
Josh Modney, violin
Hannah Levinson, viola
Mariel Roberts, cello
Kamna Gupta, conductor
*The Narrator and the Female Voice are of the same character

Creative Team:
Du Yun, composer, text, sound design, narrator/voice
Satomi Matsuzaki, voice/narrator
Roscha A. Säidow, Director, Costume Designer, Video
eddy kwon, Assistant Director
Kamna Gupta, conductor
Nicholas Houfek, light designer
Randi Rivera, Rehearsal Stage Manager
Žilvinas Jonušas, Props Master
Ross Karre, production coordinator and video projection technician