KOSMOS December 7, 2012

Featuring a concert version of King’s Bessie-nominated piece Astral Epitaphs that was commissioned by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company for its final shows at the Park Avenue Armory in Dec. 2011, the music of New York composer John King (www.johnkingmusic.com) will be presented at Brooklyn’s Roulette. John King's KOSMOS is reflection of the composer’s current world -- a multifaceted summary of new works by this composer who is setting a new and individual path, projecting out from his past work with John Cage and David Tudor. With new works for ensembles large and small, this concert will include performances by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, TILT Brass Sextet, and Crucible String Quartet.

John King's KOSMOS - COMPLETE PROGRAM (all works by John King):
- Astral Epitaphs, performed by TILT Brass Sextet and Brooklyn Youth Chorus
- KOSMOS part II, performed by Crucible Quartet
- (climax in) The Deserts of Love, performed by Melissa Fogarty and Ensemble
Beginning the program will be a concert version of King’s Bessie-nominated piece Astral Epitaphs that was commissioned by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company for its final shows at the Park Avenue Armory in Dec. 2011. Surrounding the Roulette space will be the TILT Brass Sextet and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, with live electronics performed by the composer. The texts for this piece come from the Latin “Lux Aeterna” and from an Ancient Greek epitaph attributed to Seikilos written on a tombstone, both dealing with timelessness and remembrance. “I wanted to include a live performance by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus in last year’s performance of Astral Epitaphs but couldn’t,” says King, “and now I have the exciting opportunity to recreate this large ensemble piece with chorus and instrumentalists throughout as well as surrounding the space.”
King’s most recent string quartet, KOSMOS part II, will be played by his Crucible Quartet, featuring NY string luminaries Cornelius Dufallo, Conrad Harris and Yves Dharamraj, along with the composer. Part I was premiered at the Lincoln Center Festival in July 2011. This is the second part of a 4-part three-hour long quartet and has an independent chance-determined live electronics surround-sound component as well.
The final piece, (climax in) The Deserts of Love, will be realized by a large 20-piece mixed ensemble and will feature the stunning voice of Melissa Fogarty, known for her early and Baroque music expertise as well as her Klezmer, operatic and contemporary virtuosity. The text for this composition is a poetic reduction of the prose fragment, “The Deserts of Love”, by Arthur Rimbaud. Each member of the ensemble is a soloist playing his or her chance-determined musical material independently of each other, following a digital time score. The soprano part floats above the ensemble moving at her own unique pace in realizing this exquisite and powerful text of Rimbaud.

Official Website: http://roulette.org