Cellist Seth Parker Woods Premieres Difficult Grace With Dancer Roderick George At 92YNY And CAP UCLA
Difficult Grace is a multimedia tour de force conceived by and featuring Woods in the triple role of Cellist, narrator/guide, and Movement Artist.
By: A.A. Cristi Oct. 17, 2022
Cellist Seth Parker Woods announces the world premiere performances of his multimedia concert tour-de-force, Difficult Grace, featuring film; spoken text; original choreography and dance by Roderick George, and visual artwork.
The new version with dance premieres at 92NY's Kaufmann Concert Hall in New York City on Saturday, November 19, 2022 at 7:30pm ET and presented by UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance in Los Angeles on Sunday, December 4, 2022 at 7:00pm PT.
Difficult Grace is a semi-autobiographical exploration of identity; past/present histories and personal growth that draws inspiration from the Great Migration; the historic newspaper, The Chicago Defender; immigration; and the poetry of Kemi Alabi and Dudley Randall. An evocative, theatrical, and genre-bending collaboration with choreographer/dancer George, Difficult Grace features Woods in the triple role of cellist, narrator/guide, and movement artist, performing music written for and with him by Freida Abtan, Monty Adkins, Fredrick Gifford, Ted Hearne, Devonté Hynes, Nathalie Joachim, and Pierre Alexandre Tremblay with visual artwork by Jacob Lawrence, Barbara Earl Thomas, Zoë McLean, and Freida Abtan. The production features sound design by Christopher Botta and lighting and visual design by Thomas Dunn.
Difficult Grace was co-commissioned for Seth Parker Woods by the 92nd Street Y, with the generous support of Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting; the Harris Theater; UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance; and The Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth. Difficult Grace travels to Chicago's Harris Theater on April 20, 2023. The world premiere of Difficult Grace without dance was presented by the Seattle Symphony at Octave 9: Raisbeck Music Center at Benaroya Hall in February 2020.
Program Information
Seth Parker Woods' Difficult Grace
Saturday, November 19, 2022 at 7:30pm ET
92nd Street Y | New York, NY
Tickets: Tickets from $25. Online concert available for viewing online for 72 hours from time of broadcast.
Link: www.92ny.org/event/seth-parker-woods
Seth Parker Woods' Difficult Grace
Sunday, December 4, 2022 at 7:00pm PT
The Glorya Kaufman Dance Theater, UCLA | Los Angeles, CA
Tickets: Tickets from $49
Link: https://cap.ucla.edu/calendar/details/difficultgrace
About Seth Parker Woods
Hailed by The Guardian as "a cellist of power and grace" who possesses "mature artistry and willingness to go to the brink," cellist Seth Parker Woods has established his reputation as a versatile artist and innovator across multiple genres. His projects delve deep into our cultural fabric, reimagining traditional works and commissioning new ones to propel classical music into the future. Woods is a recipient of the 2022 Chamber Music America Michael Jaffee Visionary Award.
In the 2022-2023 season, Woods premieres a new version of his evening-length, multimedia tour de force Difficult Grace at 92Y, UCLA, and Chicago's Harris Theater; curates and performs a program honoring the centennial of composer George Walker at The Phillips Collection in Washington D.C.; premieres Freida Abtan's My Heart is a River, commissioned by the Seattle Symphony; and performs a world premiere by Anna Thorvaldsdottir at Carnegie Hall as part of Claire Chase's Density Series. The Great Northern Festival in Minneapolis will present Woods in his critically acclaimed performance installation, Iced Bodies, in which Woods, in a wetsuit, plays an obsidian ice cello.
Recital appearances this season include concerts with pianist Andrew Rosenblum at Dumbarton Oaks in D.C., Boston's Isabella Gardner Museum, and The Wallis Annenberg Center in Beverly Hills, and a return to his former home Brussels for a solo recital at Das Haus. He also tours to Washington Performing Arts, Krannert Center, Stanford Live, California Center for the Arts, Count Basie Center for the Arts, Auburn University, and Emory University with the Chad Lawson Trio. In addition, Woods will hold residencies at Montclair State University and Oberlin Conservatory. The season will also see the release of a new solo album on Cedille Records and the soundtrack of the PBS documentary The U.S. and the Holocaust - a film by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, and Sarah Botstein - to which Woods contributed.
In addition to solo performances, he has appeared with the ICTUS Ensemble (Brussels, BE), Ensemble L'Arsenale (IT), zone Experimental (CH), Basel Sinfonietta (CH), Ensemble LPR, Orchestra of St. Luke's, the Atlanta and Seattle Symphonies, and in chamber music with violinist Hilary Hahn and pianist Andreas Haefliger. A fierce advocate for contemporary arts, Woods has collaborated and worked with a wide range of artists ranging from the likes of Louis Andriessen, Elliott Carter, Heinz Holliger, G. F. Haas, Helmut Lachenmann, Klaus Lang, and Peter Eötvos to Peter Gabriel, Sting, Lou Reed, Dame Shirley Bassey, and Rachael Yamagata to such visual artists as Ron Athey, Vanessa Beecroft, Jack Early, Adam Pendleton, and Aldo Tambellini. In the 2021-2022 season, he premiered concertos by Rebecca Saunders and Tyshawn Sorey.
His debut solo album, asinglewordisnotenough (Confront Recordings-London), has garnered great acclaim since its release in November 2016 and has been profiled in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, The Guardian, 5against4, I Care If You Listen, Musical America, Seattle Times, and Strings Magazine, amongst others.
Woods recently joined the faculty of the Thornton School of Music at The University of Southern California as Assistant Professor of Practice - Cello and Chamber Music. He previously served on the faculties of the University at Buffalo, University of Chicago, Dartmouth College, and the Chicago Academy of the Arts and as Artist in Residence at the University of Miami's Frost School of Music and Northwestern University - Center for New Music. Woods holds degrees from Brooklyn College, Musik Akademie der Stadt Basel, and a PhD from theof Huddersfield. In the 2020-21 season, he was an Artist in Residence with the Kaufman Music Center, and from 2018-2020 he served as Artist in Residence with Seattle Symphony and Creative Consultant for the interactive concert hall, Octave 9: Raisbeck Music Center.
Seth Parker Woods is a Pirastro Artist and endorses Pirastro Perpetual Strings worldwide. Learn more at www.sethparkerwoods.com.
Roderick George, born in Houston, Texas, studied dance at Ben Stevenson's Houston Ballet Academy. Roderick continued to develop his skill by exploring other techniques at The Alvin Ailey School, Miami City Ballet, LINES Professional Program and the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, TX. Before starting his professional career, he was a bronze winner of the Youth American Grand Prix in New York City in 2005 and was elected as a Presidential Scholar under the YoungArts Foundation in 2003, where he performed for the US President.
Roderick joined Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet in 2005 and also danced with Sidra Bell Dance NY, and the Kevin Wynn Collection, until he decided to move abroad to Switzerland where he joined the Basel Ballet/ Theater Basel and was later a guest with the Goteborg Operan DansKompani. In 2014, Roderick joined The Forsythe Company in Frankfurt, Germany where he learnt and shared his greatest moments with William Forsythe and the artists of TFC. His career has embraced the collaborations of his work and other great choreographers such as Peeping Tom, Jorma Elo, Jerome Bel, Jacopo Godani, William Forsythe, Johan Inger, Jiří Kylian, Sharon Eyal, Ohan Naharin, Benoit Swan-Pouffer, Richard Wherlock, Tino Seghal and many others.
In addition, Roderick has created works for Los Angeles Contemporary Dance Company (LACDC), Ballett Basel, Springboard Danse Montreal, the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (HSPVA), Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre (CCDT), MOVE NYC, University of Utah, SUNY Purchase, Boston Conservatory at Berklee and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago Choreographic Intensive.
His teachings have been explored in institutions such as Codarts Rotterdam, Ballet Prejlocaj, Marameo in Berlin, SUNY Purchase, Gibney Dance and Company, Abraham In Motion, LACDC, CCDT, MOVE NYC, HSPVA, the DAF Program in Rome, University of Houston, LINES Trainee Program, Boston Conservatory at Berklee, SALT Dance Company, The Juilliard School, NYU Tisch, Marymount Manhattan Dance Department, Hollins University, and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago.
Photo Credit: Dahlia Katz
Videos