thingNY to Partner with Orange Theatre & Oh My Ears for Arizona Residency

From January 17 to 23, Jeffrey Young and Paul Pinto, members of New York theatrical experimental music collective thingNY, will travel to Arizona to collaborate with Orange Theatre and Oh My Ears, two experimental art collectives that are reshaping the scene in the Phoenix metro area. Orange Theatre pioneers experimental, multimedia performance projects that local press have called "thought-­provoking" and "surprisingly beautiful". Oh My ears supports new experimental music in Phoenix area by organizing an annual new music marathon concert and year-­round events.

From January 17 to 22, Pinto and Young will be in residence with the seven core members of Orange Theatre at their home space in downtown Phoenix to explore how a theatre company and musical ensemble and can create new work collaboratively. For this brand new collaboration, their work together is funded by a grant from the Network of Ensemble Theaters, a national organization that exists to propel collaborative theater work to the forefront of American culture and society. The two ensembles will share methodologies, develop new performance exercises, and collaboratively create material around the theme of maps. A related topic to be discussed is how the physical layout and differences between the art scenes in New York and Phoenix deeply affect the work of each group, including the orientation toward public transit in New York and toward cars in Phoenix, the greater availability of space to work in Phoenix, and the higher concentration of experimental artists in New York.

The thingNY ­Orange Theatre residency will conclude on January 22 with a public showing at 8pm of work developed over these six days. The showing will include an opportunity for members of the public to speak with the artists about their work.

On January 23, thingNY joins forces with Phoenix experimental music organization Oh My Ears (OME) for a performance on the Third Annual Oh My Ears Marathon Concert, which will take place from 12 to 10pm at the Mesa Arts Center. Young and Pinto will perform their work Jeff Young and Paul Pinto, Patriots, Run for Public Office on a Platform of Swift and Righteous Immigration Reform, Lots of Jobs, and a Healthy Environment: An Opera by Paul Pinto and Jeffrey Young.?Created in 2011 as a parody of contemporary politics and politicians, the half­hour piece focuses on issues of immigration and national identity. Young and Pinto collaboratively created the text, music, and staging, scoring the piece for their own voices, violin, percussion, a turn table, and lots of cardboard boxes.

In "Patriots", instrumental music alternates with sung and spoken words, zany and humorous topical quips alternate with personal, pointed critiques of the political zeitgeist, fully notated sections merge into structured musical and textual improvisations, and tonal harmonies mix with startling, untraditional musical effects. Young and Pinto's performance of "...Patriots..." is part of their first tour of the Southwest, with performances in Arizona, California, and Baja California including border towns on both sides of the U.S.­Mexican border, where immigration is a daily conversation.

thingNY is a New York­based 501c3 not­for­profit collective of composer­performers who create and perform theatrically charged experimental music, champion the work of avant­garde and contemporary classical composers, and collaborate across disciplines, media and genres. Since their first concert in 2006, thingNY's projects have included four collaboratively created operas, their SPAM avant­garde variety show, the IN HOUSE site­specific house concert/installation, programs featuring composers from Berio to Globokar to your next­door neighbor, a radio play by Beckett, and over a hundred premieres of new music. www.thingNY.com

Founded in 2010 by Matthew Watkins and Stephen Christensen, Orange Theatre now has seven core company members and over 60 associate artists. The company has produced eleven shows, earning critical acclaim, a loyal fan base in downtown Phoenix, and Phoenix New Times' Big Brain and Best of Phoenix awards. In 2014, the ensemble toured its adaptation of Lorca's "Blood Wedding" to North American Cultural Laboratory in New York. Orange Theatre won the top prize at AZ Art Tank West 2015 to launch the Digital Performance Lab, an extended residency that brings together digital media artists and performers to develop and test new technologies for the stage and new methodologies for collaborative creation.

Started in 2013 as solely a marathon concert, composer Elizabeth Kennedy Bayer envisioned Oh My Ears to be a place to champion local performers and composers of contemporary and experimental music. Upon graduating with her masters in music composition from ASU in 2010, Bayer discovered the surprisingly small number of opportunities for composers in Phoenix. After attending the Bang on a Can Summer Festival in 2011, Bayer started planning toward a marathon concert and new music organization in Arizona.

Now in 2015, joined by co­director Michael Ferraro and intern Connor McKee, OME not only champions local talent but is able to reach out to ensembles all over the country to perform alongside Phoenix musicians.

Oh My Ears is funded by private donors and generous local businesses, including Jerry's Artarama, Grid Bikes, Stinkweeds, and Jivemind.

Year-­round programs include:

Musical Maps: daytime concerts open to the public connecting new audiences to new music and traditional ensembles. These events are casual gatherings where attendees create visual representations of the music they hear, which is a Musical Map. Musical Map Online Archive: ohmyears.com/musical­maps­archive.

Epic Maker Instrument Challenge: instrument building workshops for curious and inventive people. Downtown Devil: downtowndevil.com/2015/11/10/74676/oh­my­ears­maker­instrument­challenge.

For more information, visit ohmyears.com.

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