2019 Resonant Bodies Festival Earns Wall-to-Wall Coverage
“Explorations shared in a spirit of generosity and intimacy.” From The New York Times and The New Yorker to Gothamist and Man Repeller, New York’s Resonant Bodies Festival was on everyone’s radar.
September 5, 2019
““The Resonant Bodies Festival empowers singers to flex their creativity with experimental vocal-music programs of their own design. It’s a testament to the attractiveness of that invitation that this year’s edition has drawn big names from the mainstream classical and contemporary scenes who want in on the artistic liberation.””
Described by The New York Times as the festival that “brings the musical world back to school,” the 2019 Resonant Bodies Festival earned widespread coverage in mainstream and classical music media.
Photo by Gretchen Robinette
From features and interviews in The New York Times, NewMusicBox, and Brooklyn Paper, and previews in Brooklyn Based, Gothamist, Log Journal, Man Repeller, and The New Yorker, to shout-outs in The New York Times and Playbill, and reviews in The New York Times, Seen and Heard International, and San Francisco Classical Voice, ResBods was everywhere people were reading about new music or can’t-miss Brooklyn events.
Lucy Dhegrae is NewMusicBox’s September Conversation
“I would never dream of telling a singer, ‘Hey, you should do this specific piece. I want to hear you do that piece.’ Because you’re only going to get the second-best thing from a singer that way, I think. But if you ask a singer, ‘What do you love to sing? What lights you up? Right now?’ Then things feel urgent. I want to hear your urgent music.'” The founder of the Resonant Bodies Festival discusses the art and science behind the voice.
September 3, 2019
““The beautiful thing about a singer is that you contain this history of where you came from and the current moment, and you become this embodiment of colliding worlds. So that’s what I want to see. Then I want to put all of those people together and let them hear each other’s music, and be inspired.””
Resonant Bodies founder Lucy Dhegrae sat down with NewMusicBox to talk about the 2019 festival, the physicality of singing, and her journey to becoming the fierce advocate and curator she is today. The result is “The Art and Science behind The Voice,” a fascinating video and digital feature.
Noted as “equal measures intelligent, playful, ambitious and moving” by The New York Times, Resonant Bodies is a festival of contemporary vocal music that presents "today's most talented singers" (Feast of Music) performing repertoire of their own choosing. This year's festival features performers ranging from Metropolitan Opera star Stephanie Blythe to composer-performer Erin Gee.
Soprano Brenda Rae Joins Verismo Roster
"Virtuosic and sensual, capable of both power and nuance.” Verismo is proud to represent coloratura sensation Brenda Rae, who makes high-profile debuts at Teatro Real Madrid, Salzburg Festival, and the Metropolitan Opera this season.
August 21, 2019
““Her ecstatic desires are expressed in streams of twittering, coloratura runs. Ms. Rae brought plush radiance and brilliant, agile singing to the showpiece.””
Verismo Communications welcomes American soprano Brenda Rae to the roster. Praised by Opera magazine as “virtuosic and sensual, capable of both power and nuance,” Rae is a regular guest at the world’s leading opera houses in a portfolio of demanding principal roles. This season she makes several high-profile debuts, including her first appearances as Adina in Daminao Michieletto’s production of L’elisir d’amore at Teatro Real Madrid, her Salzburg Festival debut as Königin der Nacht in Die Zauberflöte, and her much-anticipated Metropolitan Opera debut as Poppea in a new David McVicar production of Agrippina, to be simulcast in cinemas worldwide via Met Live in HD.
Elsewhere this season, Rae returns to Wiener Staatsoper to reprise the title role in Laurent Pelly’s production of Lucia di Lammermoor, for which the Washington Post praised her as “incandescent, creating a three-dimensional character whose fluid coloratura mirrored the passionate meanderings of her mind.” She also returns to Bayerische Staatsoper as Aminta in Barrie Kosky’s production of Die schweigsame Frau and Opera Philadelphia as the featured artist in their Festival O19 Celebration.
Future projects include her Royal Opera House Covent Garden debut as well as appearances in New York, Madrid, Vienna, Munich, Chicago, Hong Kong, Frankfurt, and Philadelphia.
Photo by Dario Acosta
Resonant Bodies Festival Announces NYC 2019 Lineup
“A festival suffused with purpose and ambition.” ResBods returns to Brooklyn’s Roulette Intermedium for its 7th annual festival this September 3-5, 2019. Featured artists include Kate Soper, Arooj Aftab, Anthony Roth Costanzo, and Charmaine Lee with guest artists Conrad Tao, Vijay Iyer, Wet Ink Ensemble, Ashley Bathgate.
May 29, 2019
DETAILS
NYC 2019 RESONANT BODIES FESTIVAL
Roulette | 509 Atlantic Ave | Brooklyn, NY 11217
FESTIVAL PRICING
$50 Festival Pass for all three nights
$75 Superfan Festival Pass includes VIP seating + drink ticket
PER NIGHT PRICING
Presale tickets: $20 standard; $30 Superfan presale with VIP seating + drink ticket
Door tickets: $20 student; $25 general
““In equal measures intelligent, playful, ambitious and moving, the program illuminated the shape-shifting power of the human voice.” ”
That intoxicating review of the inaugural Resonant Bodies Festival in 2013 marked its arrival as an immediately valuable contributor to the city’s music scene. The festival has since evolved into something akin to New York Fashion Week for the new music set, offering a chance for buck-the-trendsetters to experience the high-energy epicenter of experimental vocal music.
The flagship festival returns to Roulette this September 3-5, kicking off the concert season with three fast-paced nights of vocal luminaries and artistic renegades converging in the best “see and be seen” creative energy New York has to offer.
LINEUP
September 3
Charmaine Lee • Anthony Roth Costanzo • Jane Sheldon
September 4
Anaïs Maviel • Kate Soper • Ted Hearne
September 5
Stephanie Blythe • Arooj Aftab • Erin Gee
"From Song Came Symphony" is 'A Wide-Ranging Night of African-American Music Served up with Fire And Feeling'
The Burleigh Society and Urban Playground Chamber Orchestra co-production “landed with earth-shattering force.”
May 9, 2019
Photo by Richard Burrowes, International Center of Photography alum
“From Song Came Symphony,” a co-production of the Harry T. Burleigh Society and Urban Playground Chamber Orchestra, has earned critical acclaim. The performance, tracing the symphonic influence of Burleigh’s compositions, included the NYC premiere of Florence Price’s Violin Concerto No. 2 and William Grant Still’s rarely heard oratorio And They Lynched Him on A Tree.
““The baleful concluding oracle landing with earth-shattering force.””
The New York Classical Review praised Still’s piece, saying it “does indeed still pack a wallop” as it “provides a new context for Still’s account of a black life that mattered, and his fervent words of warning at the end.”
San Francisco Classical Voice hailed Burleigh as a “titanic figure in U.S. music history,” praising the performance of his “work’s deft inner voices with great clarity” and the “rich and seamless sound” of the orchestra’s string section. In the Price Concerto, “Kelly Hall-Tompkins covered the solo part with unflappable poise, bringing a luscious radiance to her lower register. The orchestra swooned and incandesced with theatrical fervor.”
Read the full review from New York Classical Review >
Read the full review from San Francisco Classical Voice >
Harry T. Burleigh's 'Pioneering Influence' Recognized by All Arts
“Organizers have sought to recognize creators who unflinchingly detailed Black experiences despite the risk of offending a powerful white establishment.” An All Arts preview examines the influence of Harry T. Burleigh on generations of African American classical musicians.
May 3, 2019
Photo by Shateek Mitchell, International Center of Photography alum
““’Burleigh wrote music that was both immediately recognizable to the ear as having African-American music idiom influence — and music that was not,’ explained Marti Slaten, the executive director of the Harry T. Burleigh Society. She said his success in skirting that delicate line between two seemingly disparate genres created space not only for him, but also for future generations of Black artists and creatives.””
Ahead of their May 8 concert at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Harry T. Burleigh Society spoke with All Arts about their second collaboration with the Urban Playground Chamber Orchestra.
The concert, to include the NYC premiere of Florence Price’s Violin Concerto No. 2, and the rarely performed William Grant Still oratorio And They Lynched Him on A Tree, is designed to showcase symphonic composers influenced by Burleigh’s work.
All Arts wrote that the concert will “recognize creators who unflinchingly detailed Black experiences despite the risk of offending a powerful white establishment.”
Read the preview >
Burleigh Society Concert at Carnegie Hall Praised for Performance, Promise
“A stinging rebuke to still-active demeaning stereotypes that cast black people as sassy, loud, and unrefined.” The Harry T. Burleigh Society concert, featuring the Fisk Jubilee Singers, earned critical acclaim from the Log Journal.
March 6, 2019
Photo by Sara Beth Turner
““Burleigh’s spiritual arrangements are artful and jewel-like, deftly weaving voices into a seamless texture [with] aching suspensions and rich, surprising dissonances…””
The March 2 Harry T. Burleigh Society concert at Carnegie Hall, featuring the Fisk Jubilee Singers, earned critical acclaim from the Log Journal.
“While it would technically be accurate to call the Jubilee Singers a college a cappella ensemble, the designation does not do them justice. They sing, with uncanny precision, in a plush bel canto style… It allowed for the haunting, otherworldly conclusion to In Bright Mansions. In a haloed murmur, the basses sang a repeating descending figure, lingering on each note that rubbed against the diaphanous held chord in the upper voices – a frisson of quiet ecstasy, a premonition of Heaven."
“Wade in the Water is…a pungent, brooding arrangement of a tune laced with buried, righteous anger. In the quiet, refined style of the Fisk Singers, it was hair-raising. Other songs affirmed the necessity of hope, promising Heaven as a release from literal bondage; Wade in the Water affirmed the necessity of justice, promising a reckoning far too long overdue.”
VerismoComm Welcomes Lidiya Yankovskaya to Roster
“One of the hottest young conductors forging a path in the world of opera today… Lidiya Yankovskaya is the future of opera.” As Music Director of Chicago Opera Theater, Lidiya is the only woman to hold that title in a multimillion-dollar opera company in the United States.
November 5, 2018
Verismo Communications is proud to welcome Russian-American conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya to the roster. As Music Director of Chicago Opera Theater, Yankovskaya is the only woman to hold that title in a multimillion-dollar opera company in the United States.
Under her leadership, COT has established the Vanguard Initiative, a three-pronged investment in new opera that includes a two-year residency for emerging opera composers. Committed to developing the next generation of artistic leaders, she also serves on the Advisory Board of Turn The Spotlight, a foundation dedicated to illuminating the path to a more equitable future in the arts.
Yankovskaya is Founder and Artistic Director of the Refugee Orchestra Project, which proclaims the cultural and societal relevance of refugees through music, and has brought that message to the United Nations and hundreds of thousands of listeners around the world.
In the 2018/19 season, Ms. Yankovskaya leads the Chicago premieres of Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta and Heggie’s Moby-Dick at COT, the world premiere of Kamala Sankaram’s Taking Up Serpents at Washington National Opera, and the world premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon’s Ellen West at Opera Saratoga. She conducts Grétry’s Belgian rarity Zémire et Azor at Carnegie Mellon University, workshops Justin Chen’s The Life and Death(s) of Alan Turing at COT and Paola Prestini’s Edward Tulane at Minnesota Opera, and makes her Mobile Symphony debut in Carmina Burana. She also debuts at Trinity Wall Street, leading the New York premiere of Laura Schwendinger’s Artemisia, and returns to New York’s National Sawdust to close her season with the Hildegard Competition Concert, which features the work of emerging female, trans, and nonbinary composers.