Dance Interlude premiered by ROCO
- On December 29, 2020
- By alzand@rice.edu
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ROCO recently premiered Dance Interlude at their online concert “Love Notes,” performed at Nancy Littlejohn Fine Art, Houston, Texas, October 17, 2020. The short celebratory work was commissioned at part of ROCO’s FIFteen Project—delayed from last season by COVID-19. The project, curated by Houston-based composer, Mark Buller, is a commissioned set of fifteen Fanfares, Interludes, and Finales, (FIF) written by a diverse set of composers and sprinkled throughout ROCO’s 15th (and 16th!) season. The performance featured oboists Alecia Lawyer, Erin Tsai and Spring Hill (on English horn).
The Leader premiere with Musiqa and Opera in the Heights
- On April 16, 2020
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In Musiqa, News
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On February 23 & 29 my one-act chamber opera The Leader received its premiere on a double-bill with Anthony Brandt’s Kassandra. Presented at Lambert Hall as a co-production of Musiqa and Opera in the Heights, the work was conducted by Eiki Isomura and stage directed by Cara Consilvio. Many thanks to the terrific cast of Mark Diamond (Announcer), Lindsay Russell Bowden (Female Lover), Zachary Averyt (Male Lover), Megan Berti (Female Admirer) and Jason Zacher (Male Admirer).
The Leader is a chamber opera based on Eugène Ionesco’s Le Maître, a one-act political satire from 1953. Scored for 5 voices and large ensemble, the work is both an absurdist comedy and a timely allegory on the casual rise of despots.
The production featured unique reversible sets specially designed by Jesús Vassallo. (below)
SYNOPSIS
The Announcer and two Admirers are chasing the Leader. Apparently he is nearby but the trio always seems to arrive a moment too late. Though he eludes them, they yearn to be in his presence. They fervently worship him from afar, following his every action with rapt attention. Meanwhile, two Lovers court each other and profess their mutual affection. Finally, the Leader approaches, the anticipation builds and the Lovers are swept up in the frenzy. The Leader is coming: his imminent arrival is hailed with increasing zeal.
On its surface, The Leader is a comedy. Its situations are farcical, its action is madcap, and its cast is full of outrageous caricatures worthy of opera buffa. The Announcer and Admirers, in their adulation, repeat the same words over and over again: platitudes and banalities echoed by mindless followers. Their behavior is preposterous, yet their unquestioning fervor seems all too familiar…
As is common in the so-called “theater of the absurd,” The Leader achieves its effect not through plot machination or character development, but through parody, a kind of exaggeration that forces us to reckon with our own sense of the world and its predicaments. It was published in 1953, six years before the playwright’s best known work, Rhinoceros, but shares with the later work its satirical tone, allegorical character and underlying political critique. Together the plays are often read as a commentary on the rise of fascism in the lead-up to World War II, and a mockery of its dangerously charismatic leaders.
But the cautionary message of Ionesco’s play is as relevant today as ever. The Leader lays bare the cult of personality which accompanies despotism. It inveighs against mob mentality and mass conformity. The cloud of uncertainty with which the play ends shows us the result of such tendencies, and serves as a rallying cry for reason and individual thinking.The Chestnut Street Singers on WRTI
- On April 11, 2020
- By alzand@rice.edu
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The Chestnut Street Singers, Philadelphia’s cooperative chorus, performed my a cappella arrangement of My Romance by Rogers & Hart in a March 5th, 2020 live appearance on WRTI 90.1 Radio, in preparation for their season program “Always Singing.”
Nathan Lofton, a member of the ensemble, found this old arrangement of mine (from 1998) in a box of music he inherited from the late choral conductor Lorna Cooke deVaron, former director of the NEC Camerata, for whom I wrote the arrangement. The piece was performed on March 6 at the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill and on March 8 at St. Mark’s Church in Philadelphia.Dietrich Henschel and ensemble unitedberlin release CD X-mas Contemporary
- On November 28, 2019
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In News, Reviews/Press
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Dietrich Henschel and ensemble unitedberlin, under the direction of conductor Vladimir Jurowski have released a double CD entitled X-Mas Contemporary, featuring the premiere recordings of twelve holiday-inspired works.
What does Christmas mean to you?
Baritone Dietrich Henschel asked twelve composers from different countries and cultures to create a work for voice and ensemble and to use musical means to describe what they associate with Christmas. It was up to them whether religion or tradition played a role. Even criticism and satire were possible. As expected, the answers are all very different.
X-MAS CONTEMPORARY – The Christmas Carol of the 21st Century
12 composers write 12 Christmas songs of the 21st century.
Works by
Karim Al Zand
Detlev Glanert
Manfred Trojahn
Jose-Maria Sanchez-Verdu
Vanessa Lann
Arno Waschk
Olga Rayeva
Jamie Man
Michèle Reverdy
Annette Schlünz
Jobst Liebrecht
Matan Porat
The CD release will coincide with concert performances in Berlin, Rotterdam and Dusseldorf in December, 2019. The CD is available on iTunes. The CD has earned several positive reviews already.
Opera in the Heights Announces 2019–2020 season, including premiere of The Leader
- On May 07, 2019
- By alzand@rice.edu
- In News, Reviews/Press
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Opera in the Heights has just announced its 2019–2020 line-up, which will include a collaboration with Musiqa in February 2020. As part of a new initiative, their New Works Festival will feature a double-bill of chamber opera premières on February 23rd and 29th: Anthony Brandt’s Kassandra and Karim Al-Zand’s The Leader, both conducted by OH artistic director Eiki Isomura. The libretto of The Leader is drawn from a short one-act play by French-Romanian playwright Eugène Ionesco. The work is a comic opera, an absurdist political satire about authoritarianism, groupthink and the cult of personality.