May 2008

A man in a room gambling

May 14 + 15, 2008 @ 8:00pm
German Society of Pennsylvania
Barthelmes Auditorium
611 Spring Garden Street
Philadelphia, PA 19123
Tickets

Music by Gavin Bryars
Text (after S.W. Erdnase) by Juan Muñoz
Film by Bill Morrison
Visual Design by Laurie Olinder
Performed by the Todd Reynolds Situation with Gavin Bryars
Music Direction by Todd Reynolds
Directed by Bob McGrath

http://www.peregrinearts.org/events.html

Join us for an intimate evening of aural and visual sleight-of-hand in the 19th-century atmosphere of the historic German Society of Pennsylvania. Gavin Bryars' 1992 ten part series for string quartet and spoken word, A Man In A Room Gambling, are beautiful feats of sonic subterfuge. Bryars created this cycle with the late sculptor Juan Muñoz, who included texts describing card tricks adapted from the legendary master S.W. Erdnase. Famous for his landmark 1902 handbook on close magic, originally titled The Magician at the Card Table, Erdnase was in life as he was on the stage: mysterious and elusive. Erdnase is an assumed name, and his true identity remains unknown to this day. Bryars music weaves seductively in and out of the intricate descriptions such that it is easy to loose the thread of both music and text.

Originally written as ten short pieces for the BBC Radio, A Man In A Room Gambling will be performed by renowned violinist and multi-stylist Todd Reynolds and the Todd Reynolds Situation, with a special guest appearance by Gavin Bryars on contrabass. For select vignettes, visual projections and design will be created by Bill Morrison and Laurie Olinder with direction by Bob McGrath. Some pieces will be performed with the original recordings of Juan Muñoz speaking his adaptations of S.W. Erdnase's descriptions of expert card sharping.

Bryars and Muñoz created A Man In A Room Gambling on commission from London-based Artangel. Bryars has long envisioned creating a larger work for the theater based on Erdnase's life and legacy, making A Man In A Room Gambling both a completed set of compositions unto themselves and studies for a larger work. These performances are presented as preview sketches for the full music-theater piece Who Was Erdnase?, which has been commissioned by Peregrine Arts to open in 2010.

This program is supported by the Argosy Foundation Contemporary Music Fund and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Persephone
(working title)

a collaboration by Ben Neill, Mimi Goese, and Ridge Theater.

The Greek myth of Persephone is presented as a 19th century theatrical experience immersed in the colors of the Hudson River School of painting, then transported through a dense wave of cutting edge musical and visual technology.