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Shimmer (2007)
ROTHKO (1986, revised 2007)
(All works ASCAP)

Joan La Barbara – voice
Kurt Ralske – video

Shimmer is heat rising from the desert floor, shimmer is light sparkling on water, shimmer is wraiths passing along the back walls, shimmer is the aurora borealis, shimmer is in ghostly conversations. Shimmer (2007) is the latest scene from an opera in-progress, for multiple voices and layered sonic “atmospheres”. Here, I am exploring sounds inside the mind, impossible sounds, fragile sounds, transparent, ghostly sounds, shimmering voices and modular fragments. A series of inhales with no exhale, separated by sonic blackness, silences of varying lengths are shattered by a sudden burst of underwater wails, as the work moves from interior to exterior space and back again.

“ROTHKO” was conceived after my first visit to The Rothko Chapel in Houston. I was so moved and overwhelmed by the majesty, the depth and complexity of Mark Rothko’s exquisite final paintings that I wanted to create a work in homage to those images. In 1985, I composed “A Rothko Study”for voice and chamber ensemble, premiered at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In 1986, I composed “ROTHKO” for multiple layers of vocal multiphonics and reinforced harmonics interwoven with bowed piano, and premiered the 8-channel work with live vocal overlay in the octagonal space of the Rothko Chapel, as part of the New Music America festival. The performance for RouletteTV is the New York premiere of a new mix combining elements of the original recordings with remixes from the version that appears on track 2 of my New World cd, “ShamanSong”. “ROTHKO” is both monochromatic and intricately infinite, as are the paintings which inspired it.

Joan La Barbara, composer, performer, sound artist has created sound scores for film, video and dance in addition to concert music. “One of the great vocal virtuosas of our time” (San Francisco Examiner), her multi-layered compositions often utilize her signature extended vocal techniques, a unique vocabulary of experimental sounds including multiphonics, circular singing, ululation and glottal clicks that bridge the line between text, soundart and song, garnering her awards including American Music Center Letter of Distinction, Guggenheim Fellowship in Music Composition, DAAD Artist-in-Residency in Berlin, 7 NEA grants, ISCM International Jury Award; Meet The Composer; ASCAP and numerous commissions for concert, theatre and radio. Recordings include “ShamanSong” (New World) and “Voice is the Original Instrument” (Lovely Music), hailed as one of The Wire’s 10 best reissues of the year. “73 Poems”, her collaboration with text-artist Kenneth Goldsmith, was included in The American Century Part II: SoundWorks at The Whitney Museum of American Art. “Messa di Voce”, an interactive media performance work, premiered at ars electronica 2003. Her score for voice with electronics for “Children’s Television Workshop/Sesame Street” has been broadcast worldwide since 1977. She has been soloist in her own and other composers’ works with the orchestras of New York, San Francisco, Den Haag, Houston, and Los Angeles and at international festivals including Brisbane Biennial, Festival d’Automne à Paris, Warsaw Autumn, Frankfurt Feste, Lincoln Center, Metamusik-Berlin and Olympics Arts Festivals. La Barbara’s current composing commissions include a new spoken word opera, “An American Rendition”, a work for solo flute and sonic atmosphere, both for premiere in 2008, in addition to ongoing work on an opera in-progress. www.joanlabarbara.com

Kurt Ralske’s video installations and performances are created exclusively with his own custom software. His work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Guggenheim Bilbao, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art. Kurt programmed and co-designed the 9-channel video installation that is permanently in the lobby of the MoMA in NYC. In 2003, his work received First Prize at the Transmediale International Media Art Festival in Berlin, as a member of the video ensemble 242.pilots. He is also the author/programmer of Auvi, a popular video software environment in use by artists in 22 countries. Kurt is the recipient of a 2007 Rockefeller Foundation Media Arts Fellowship. Kurt resides in New York City. He is Visiting Professor of Digital Art at The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and is on the faculty of The School of Visual Arts, NYC, in the MFA Computer Art Department.