Programs

Provenance | Almost Human | Far-Off Country | World to Come

PROVENANCE: MAYA BEISER with special guests Jamey Haddad and Bassam Saba

 

Maya Beiser, cello
Bassam Saba, oud
Jamey Haddad, percussion
Shahrokh Yadegari, live electronics

Music by:
Simon Shaheen
Tamar Muskal
Raz Mesinai
Douglas Cuomo
Abdelli
Kayhan Kalhor
Hamza El Din
Djivan Gasparyan
Martin Codax

Conceived and Produced by Maya Beiser

In a world troubled by religious strife and division, the period between the eighth and fifteenth centuries in the Iberian Peninsula offers a hopeful historical reminder: Muslims, Christians, and Jews once lived together in Spain, creating a centuries-long flowering of commerce, culture, art, and architecture. They forged a Golden Age for each faith and distanced Spain from a Europe mired in the Dark Ages.

Cellist Maya Beiser’s new Project, Provenance, is inspired by this impossibly panoramic sweep of human history and achievement, and by the glory of a multireligious, multicultural, civilization that forever changed the West.

Maya grew up on an Israeli Kibbutz at the foothills of the Galilee Mountains. Her Kibbutz was a progressive Jewish community living in harmony with the neighboring Muslim and Christian Arab villages. The local Middle Eastern music was the ever present experience of childhood. Whether played at her neighbors’ celebrations and holidays or emanating from the minarets at dawn as the Muezzin called the faithful for morning prayers, these sounds were as integral to her auditory landscape as the Bach and Schubert she played as a child.

For Provenance Maya Beiser has commissioned young composers from Israel, Palestine, Algeria, Morocco, Iran and the United States to create music inspired by the Golden Age in Medieval Spain. Also included are arrangements of masterpieces by Hamza el Din, Djivan Gasparyan and the 9th century Galician troubadour Martin Codax. Joining her on stage will be the Lebanese-American master Oud player Bassam Saba, and hand drummer virtuoso Jamey Haddad. The different pieces will be united by Iranian-American Sound designer and computer specialist Shahrokh Yadegari, who will create a cohesive and shared sonic space, in real time, within which the musicians will perform.

Provenance will offer a contemporary interpretation of the shared harmonious source, emanating from the Iberian Golden Age. Maya is not engaged in an archeological dig in which the music of the 8th century is stood again on its feet. Instead she seeks another, deeper approach: to reproduce an environment in which varied and seemingly culturally dissimilar traditions can once again occupy the same shared space. Provenance outlines the origins of an ideal in which cultural differences are not simply tolerated but explicitly sought for the energy they release with each encounter. Like the Golden Age of the Iberian Peninsula itself, Provenance goes a step further and embraces co-existence not as a luxury but a necessity without which art cannot be made and culture cannot exist.

Provenance is 75 non-stop minutes of continuous thread where live music and original text in Ladino, Arabic, Hebrew and Latin are woven together into an all-encompassing musical tapestry.

Provenance will be played without break or intermission.

Sound Installation and design – Sharokh Yagedari
Sound Design – Dave Cook
Lighting Design – Stephen Arnold
Artistic Adviser – Robert Woodruff

Almost Human

The sound of the cello is considered the most "human" of all instruments. Maya Beiser takes the cello to yet another uncharted terrain; exploring ancient vocal traditions. Voices of Medieval madrigal, traditional Cambodian, Chinese and Taiwanese minority singing, indigenous Armenian and Indonesian ritual singing and Jewish Cantorial chanting are some of the sources for inspiration.

Described by the New Yorker Magazine as "The Cello Goddess", Maya Beiser has continued to enchant audiences and critics around the globe with her virtuosity, genre-bending style and relentless quest for redefining her instrument's boundaries. Over the last decade she has conceived of and presented major pieces for the cello, written for her by some of the most prominent contemporary composers. Each one of her projects received great critical acclaim and played around the Globe to sold out concert halls.

Almost Human is intended to present the cello from yet another angle: The challenge Maya presented to the composers was to delve into ancient vocal traditions as the basis and inspiration for the pieces. The resulting works give the cello a powerful and haunting opportunity to "sing" the music. The works draw from cultures as diverse as Jewish, Armenian, African and Cambodian. All share rich traditions of communicating heritage and folklore through the chanting human voice. The cello in Maya Beiser's hands is eminently capable of expressing the complexity of emotions embodied in each cultural tradition.

Maya Beiser, Cello
David Cook, Sound design
Clifton Taylor/Carolyn Wong, Lighting design
Stephen Arnold, Lighting/Projection Director

Program:

Tsmindao Ghmerto, For Cello and Vocals
Anonymous,arranged by Evan Ziporyn

Khse Buon (1980), For solo cello
Chinary Ung

Motion Detector (2006), For solo cello, sampled chorus and live electronics
Joby Talbot
Commissioned by Maya Beiser for the "Almost Human" project

Feige/Antiphonal Song (2003)
Tan Dun

All Vows (2006)
Michael Gordon
Commissioned for Maya Beiser by The Carnegie Hall Corporation through the generosity of The Maria and Robert A. Skirnick Fund for New Works at Carnegie Hall.

--------------------Intermission-----------------------

I am writing to you from a far-off country (2006)

Music by: Eve Beglarian
Video by: Shirin Neshat
Text by: Henri Michaux

I am writing to you from a far-off country was commissioned as part of the national series of works from Meet The Composer Commissioning Music/USA, which is made possible by generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Helen F. Whitaker Fund, and the Target Foundation. Co-commissioned by Emory University, On the Boards, The Carnegie Hall Corporation, The Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, Walker Art Center and Washington Performing Arts Society.  Additional support was provided by the MediaThe Foundation, and the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art with funds provided by The Katherine A. Abelson Fund of the Lester S. Abelson Foundation.

"I am writing you from a far-off country" By Henri Michaux, Translated by Richard Ellmann, from SELECTED WRITINGS, copyright © 1968 by New Directions Publishing Corp. Used by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

Far-Off Country

In Far-Off Country, Maya Beiser combines select works from her programs Almost Human and Provenance, creating a unique evening of collaborations among renowned Middle Eastern musicians that ranges from the contemporary classical, with the use of electronics and video, to a purely acoustic world music aesthetic. The first half will feature a collaboration with two virtuoso Lebanese players: Oud and nay master Bassam Saba, and master hand drummer Jamey Haddad. This first half promises to be a virtuosic exploration of the sounds of Middle Eastern music. The most ambitious new work in this concert "I am writing to you from a far-off country," will be presented in the second half. This 40-minute "solo multimedia dreamscape" is the result of an intimate collaboration between Maya Beiser, composer Eve Beglarian, and visual artist Shirin Neshat. These women represent not only an artistic partnership but also a union of three different Middle Eastern cultures and the three major monotheistic religions: Maya is Jewish Israeli, Eve is Christian Armenian, and Shirin is Muslim Iranian. Inspired by a mysterious, moving poem by the Belgian surrealist Henri Michaux, "I am writing to you from a far-off country" incorporates traditional Armenian melodies and features a cello, spoken text, and vocals, in a dialogue with a PowerBook laptop. Seated at the center, surrounded within an installation of 9 monitors projecting Shirin Neshat's images, Maya creates a complex sensory universe corresponding to Michaux's surreal and haunting poem.

Maya Beiser writes: "In a world where recent events have focused on the Middle East as an epicenter of regional and religious strife, one hopes that women may have the power to restore sensible harmony. Michaux's poem offers a powerful female voice innocently commenting on her world. We hope to capture this calm voice with its wonderment and soothing tone to depict the balancing power of women. We want to offer this work as an antidote to the terrible violence that is gripping the world. At the least, we hope that the success of our collaboration would be a call to women from 'Far-Off Countries' to attempt the same."

World To Come

Evocative, theatrical and spiritual, World To Come is Maya Beiser's multimedia solo concert, featuring premieres by Steve Reich, Osvaldo Golijov and David Lang. This evening challenges the notion of a solo cello concert and encompasses text, vocals, dramatic lighting and interactive videos. World To Come had its world premiere at the Krannert Center on October 18th, 2003, and its New York premiere as part of the inaugural season of Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall on October 30th, 2003, followed by a major national and international tour.