ONE-TWO-THREE-GO!
Concert #10
Sunday, February 17, 2002 at 4:30 PMRead the preview from Time Out New York
Read the review from the Village Voice===================================================================================
PHIL KLINE
w/ special guests:Todd Reynolds, violin &
Eve Beglarian, vocals=================================================================================
MIRAGE (I ONLY HAVE EYES FOR YOU)
film by Tom Jarmusch & Fabienne GautierFOUR ETUDES FOR VIOLIN
Todd Reynolds, violinA CITY CALLED HEAVEN
with Eve Beglarian, vocals & Todd Reynolds, violinMEDITATIONS IN AN EMERGENCY
video by Phil Kline
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PROGRAM NOTES
Mirage (I only have eyes for you) (2000) is an adaptation of a film that Tom Jarmusch, Fabienne Gautier and I collaborated on in 1999 for a program of pieces based on popular songs. The following year, while working on my opera Into the fire, I found a section of text in Luc Sante's Factory of Facts which revealed that he shared my long-time fascination with the Flamingoes oldie, so into the opera, or fire, it went, with added voice-over and some musical emendations.
Four Etudes for Violin (2001) are the first group of a series of "Reynolds Etudes" designed to show the possibilities of the electric violin in the hands of a virtuoso with live player-activated processing. These explorations of the art of phrase sample looping were written in September, in the days immediately before and after the World Trade Center bombing.
A City called Heaven (2002) appropriates the words of an old southern uplands spiritual and sets them to a new tune, albeit one with an old-timey bent in the midst of its digital processes.
Meditations in an Emergency (2001) is a symphony in the sense that it is a work of a certain length with a certain number of contrasting movements which seem to describe the arc of a spiritual journey. The title comes from Frank O'Hara's poem, which begins "Each time my heart is broken it makes me feel more adventurous."
The video component was to be shot by Tom Jarmusch, but Tom, convinced that I knew just what I wanted (whether or not I realized it) persuaded me to shoot it myself, basically turning the camera on, setting it up and handing it to me. So, it is my debut as a video director, and quite possibly the first of a series of music video symphonies.
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Phil Kline's music stretches between avant-garde "classical" music and ambient electronica, often employing dozens or even hundreds of boom box tape players, mixed with acoustic and electronic instruments to create multi-dimensional sound environments in non-traditional venues such as the Brooklyn Anchorage, Washington Square or Central Park's South Meadow, as well as the Whitney Museum, Alice Tully Hall, the Kitchen, the Knitting Factory, Tonic and London's Barbican Centre.
His Christmas piece Unsilent Night has been heard in the streets of New York annually since 1992, and was presented this past year in Berlin, Germany, Vancouver, B.C. and Tallahassee, Florida. Other recent works include a String Quartet, the song cycle When I Had A Voice and an opera, Into the Fire, based on texts of Luc Sante. CDs include Glow in the Dark on CRI and the newly-released Unsilent Night on Cantaloupe.
Todd Reynolds is an improvising composer and a solo interpreter of new music. He is the assistant conductor and violinist for Steve Reich and Musicians and a founding member of the extraordinary string quartet Ethel. He also works extensively with the Bang On A Can organization as well as countless other composers and artists, and is the creator of the multi-media performance work-in-progress, Still Life with Mic.
"One of new music's truly free spirits" (The Village Voice), Eve Beglarian is a composer, performer, and audio producer whose work has been performed in the most mainstream concert halls and theaters as well as in clubs and lofts. Her chamber music has been commissioned and performed by the California EAR Unit, Relâche, the Paul Dresher Ensemble, the Crosstown Ensemble, Dinosaur Annex, and the New York New Music Ensemble, among others. She has recently received a commission from the Bang on a Can Peoples Commissioning Fund for a May 2002 premiere.
TOM JARMUSCH and FABIENNE GAUTIER are artists who live in New York City and Paris France, respectively. I Only Have Eyes For You (the original version of Mirage) has been screened in the US and internationally. It was shot in Super 8, 16mm and with a toy video camera.
jarmuschtom@hotmail.com
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sTRANGEqUOTE:
"When I had my last breakdown" - she spoke of it as a sturdy, gallant feat.
"The doctors told me" - her voice sang on a confidential note - "that if any man alive had done the consistent drinking that I have, he would have been physically shattered, my dear, and in his grave, long in his grave."
Amory winced, and wondered how this would have sounded to Froggy Parker.
"Yes," continued Beatrice tragically, "I had dreams, wonderful visions." She pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes. "I saw bronze rivers lapping marble shores, and great birds that soared through the air, parti-colored birds with iridescent plumage. I heard sTRANGEmUSIC and the flare of barbaric trumpets... what?"
Amory had snickered.
"What, Amory?"
"I said, go on, Beatrice."
F. Scott Fitzgerald
THIS SIDE OF PARADISE (1920)
Book One - The Romantic Egotist
Chapter 1: Amory, Son of Beatrice