8pm
Andrew Poppy 12 Thoughts on the Language of Others (2010)
Josephine Foster German Lied Unorthodox (2014)
Peter Ablinger Voices and Piano (1998 - ) (excerpts)
Georges Aperghis Récitations (1977 - 78) (excerpts)
John Giorno:
Life Is A Killer (1982)
It Doesn’t Get Better (2010)
The Death of William Burroughs (1997)
Thanx 4 Nothing (2007)
Jennifer Walshe i: same person/ii: not the same person (2007)
Performers
Eric Chenaux guitar (Foster)
Josephine Foster voice
John Giorno
Victor Herrero guitar (Foster)
Mark Knoop piano (Ablinger)
Lore Lixenberg voice (Aperghis)
Andrew Poppy voice, keyboard
Gyda Valtysdottir cello (Foster)
Jennifer Walshe voice
In this night we reimagine the popular song and explore the limits of the voice. We begin with a set of Josephine Foster’s arrangements of songs by Schubert, Schumann and Brahms, drawn from her 2006 recording A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, which sees the singer transform the Romantic Lied into homespun American folk ballads.
‘Do great songs need to be sung?’ asks Andrew Poppy (pictured below) in 12 Thoughts on the Language of Others. Tonight we explore the possibility that they don’t. Alongside Poppy’s work will be selections from Peter Ablinger’s Voices and Piano, in which the piano sings while voices speak. From here we wander into the extraordinary world of Georges Aperghis’ Récitations (1977-78) with mezzo Lore Lixenberg.
Poems are songs too - when John Giorno recites them. A legendary figure of the downtown art scene in New York, Giorno will recite several works that reflect on five decades of creativity collaborating with the likes of William Burroughs (pictured below - Giorno, right) and Andy Warhol (with whom he made the film Sleep).
To end the night, acclaimed composer and vocalist Jennifer Walshe will perform one of her own compositions i: same person/ii: not the same person (2007) that sees 'a steady crescendo of electronic flutter' give way to 'a torrent of half-whistling, half-salivating vocalism'.
Lead photo credits
1: Robert Seymour Beckinsale
2 & 3: William Pine
4: Dimitri Djuric