Jerome Kitzke Opens Tribeca New Music Festival This Weekend

Marking the commencement of the 2015-16 Tribeca New Music festival, AN AMERICAN MAVERICK | JEROME KITZKE AT 60 celebrates composer-storyteller JEROME KITZKE in a two-night concert series this weekend, November 13-14, 2015, at The DiMenna Center for Classical Music. Known for creating works that are uniquely and bracingly American, where freedom and ritual converge, Kitzke shares his career-long dedication to social justice and the human condition in this special program comprised of a dozen of his works composed between 1987 and 2015, including the world premiere of For Pte Tokahewin Ska. From the premier string quartet ETHEL and pianist Anthony de Mare to Hammond B-3 rising star Wil Smith and accordionist Guy Klucevsek, 26 of today's top contemporary artists will come together to perform and honor the inimitable musical language of Jerome Kitzke.

"Two years ago, composer/bass clarinetist Michael Lowenstern proposed that we celebrate Jerome Kitzke's 60th birthday with a concert retrospective," says Preston Stahly, director of Tribeca New Music. I loved the idea, being an admirer of Jerome's outside-the-box musical style for years. His combination of pop culture jazz and poetry, infused with a spirit of Native American song and social justice, is an excellent fit for our mission and values. We're very proud to present this special two-concert celebration."

As much a storyteller as a composer, Kitzke shares his politically charged convictions through his poly-stylistic music often interwoven with text. He has built a career that increasingly turns to the sufferings of war, various forms of struggle, quests for love and friendship, and calls for justice as source material. "For me it has to do with being an American," explains Kitzke.

"I feel-and have now felt for over 30 years that studying Native American/White relationships, the horrors of war and the human condition and writing pieces about them-that one of the outcomes is that I am a better American and a better person through understanding the stories of what actually happened, and digging deeper for the truth." As Kitzke celebrates his milestone 60th birthday this year (02/06/15), he reflects on the social impact of his music. "I always feel if I reach a number of people with these pieces and it pricks them into exploring some of these issues on their own, then I have been successful."

Influenced by the spirit of Plains Indian song, driving jazz, Beat Generation poetry, and contemporary classical music, his repertoire includes vocalizing instrumentalists, theatrical speaking, extended techniques, and hard driving drumming, all notated in beautiful hand-drawn scores. Kitzke's heartfelt concern with the state of the Native American Nations, and the American landscape and how we live in it, manifests in full flower in this special two-concert celebration. "I've written many pieces that have to do with my perception of the relationship between the Europeans who came to this country and the native nations that were already here. That interaction, now ongoing for well over 500 years, is a fascinating and important one to me."

The series' pinnacle is the world premiere of For Pte Tokahewin Ska named and written in honor of Kitzke's Oglala Lakota friend, Charlotte Black Elk. The title is Ms. Black Elk's Lakota name and means "white buffalo woman of different motion." This piece marks the latest of several Kitzke works dedicated to the Lakota. The Paha Sapa Give-Back (1993) and Mad Coyote Madly Sings (1991) are two of four pieces that form a large theatrical work serving as a musical sermon to give the "Paha Sapa" (trans. Black Hills) back to the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho nations. Scored for four percussionists/vocalists and piano, The Paha Sapa Give-Back is a reflection on indigenous people's land claims, full of complex rhythms, echoes of military and tribal drums, stabbing piano chords, and cries of anger and sorrow. Mad Coyote Madly Sings was written in response to the Persian Gulf War and is intended to be a voice crying out against not just that war, but war in general. It uses texts by the Tewa, Allen Ginsberg, and the Lakota.

The recent American military engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan inspired Kitzke's 2008 antiwar piece, Winter Count. This 37-minute magnum opus features actress/singer (Jennifer Marshall Evens), bass drum (Barbara Merjan), and string quartet (ETHEL). Kitzke uses emotionally charged poetry from the likes of Aeschylus to Harold Pinter and Walt Whitman and others to express the nightmares of war through the ages.

Arranged into 18 parts, Winter Count combines texts with meditative musical interludes, noisy free jazz-like riffs and chittering vocal sounds that result in a searing, thought-provoking reflection on the futility of war. Also included will be Kitzke's seminal works for speaking pianist, Sunflower Sutra, The Green Automobile, and The Animist Child. Other works on the programs are featured on Kitzke's Innova recordings: The Character of the American Sunlight (2013), The Paha Sapa Give-Back (2014), Haunted America (2002), and Speak! (2009).

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