Carla Kihlstedt in Necessary Monsters - West Coast Premiere! July 29, 2011

YBCA is proud to present the West Coast premiere of Carla Kihlstedt’s newest work, Necessary Monsters, a collaboration with poet Rafael Osés. A contemporary song cycle based on Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges’ Book of Imaginary Beings, Necessary Monsters is a psychological safari that encounters some of the chimeras living in the fertile landscape of our collective minds, and which thrive on the sustenance of shared experience.

Each song is a manifestation of a different imaginary creature that reflects an aspect of our complicated humanness. Narrated by a writer inhabited by these creatures, they parade out of her mind one by one in the course of a sleepless and delirious night. Among the beings that visit her are the Squonk, who weeps incessantly, the Nisna, a half-finished being complete in its incompleteness, and Odradek, an assemblage of detritus left over from past lives that will outlast us all. This is a small yet singular selection of the imaginary beings that have helped human beings to dream, all as envisioned by a single human being.

Post-Show Conversation with Carla Kihlstedt, Friday, July 29:
There will be a post-show conversation and Q&A with Carla Kihlstedt and her collaborators, moderated by independent music writer Andrew Gilbert, focusing on the making of Necessary Monsters.

Official Website: http://www.ybca.org