Wayne Shorter and Esperanza Spalding make an appeal

[gvopedz]

Greek tragedy meets American ingenuity in Iphigenia, the long-awaited opera by Wayne Shorter and Esperanza Spalding. A mythical work in progress for the last several years, it has now reached a developmental stage foreign to most other operatic productions: a crowdfunding campaign.

https://www.wbgo.org/music/2021-03-15/wayne-shorter-and-esperanza-spalding-make-an-appeal-to-get-their-opera-to-a-premiere

 

[Rooster_Ties]

And with....   Set Design by none other than.....   Frank Gehry!   

Could be, well, interesting! -- I'd imagine.  I'm certainly not a fan of everything Gehry's done, but he's nothing if not imaginative -- and some of it I quite like.

[JSngry]

I pay taxes for stuff like this, and if I don't, I should, and if I shouldn't, then I will.

"Crowdfunding" is one step short of begging. At this level, anyway. I's not like Baby Littlejimmy needs a new kidney and his momma got the covid and his daddy got a badback.from doing non-union contruction work in Texas, or some sadbuttrue shit like that.

[JSngry]

Never mind grants, some opera company or foundation could commission this.

[Hardbopjazz]

He has been composing an opera with 
Esperanza Spalding. I am eagerly waiting what this to be released or performed.

Does anybody know more about this project?

 

 

 

[danasgoodstuff]

Opera companies of the world be missing the boat by not stepping up to fund this.

[Hoppy T. Frog]

The Kennedy Center is presenting it in the coming season, not sure if they have had a funding relationship. 

 

 

Sonic Portraits: Iphigenia

Sonic Portraits tells the story of legendary women through song in brave theatrical stagings. Iphigenia, co-commissioned by the Kennedy Center, is a new operatic collaboration between two of the most visionary and daring musical voices of our time: 11-time Grammy Award^®–winning composer and saxophonist Wayne Shorter, and four-time Grammy Award^®–winning bassist, composer, and vocalist esperanza spalding. Architect Frank Gehry, a luminary creative force of his generation, will create set designs for a production by award–winning theater and opera director Lileana Blain-Cruz that will play in the Eisenhower Theater December 10–12, 2021. Improvisation becomes a living metaphor for choice as compositional hierarchies are disrupted in Shorter and spalding’s adaptation of the Greek myth that is also an intervention into myth-making itself, and an intervention into opera as we know it.

Edited April 8, 2021 by Hoppy T. Frog
added kennedy Center PR

[Gheorghe]

On 16.3.2021 at 7:36 PM, Hardbopjazz said:

He has been composing an opera with 
Esperanza Spalding. I am eagerly waiting what this to be released or performed.

Does anybody know more about this project?

 

 

 

Great Picture. When I saw Wayne Shorter around 2005 he still looked younger than 71 or 72 that he was. Here is is much older, but looks fine and happy.

Reading that the opera is about greek-mythology I think about most BN albums I have from Wayne Shorter and listen very much to them: Many titles are dedicated to some mythology and you can hear it in the music. It sounds great to me, even if I´m not really into mythology, but the music speaks for itself. I think, Wayne Shorter has been quite a difficult personality, I read the book about his live, and when he says something or este interviewed, I don´t really understand everything he says, it´s some heavy complicated stuff.

[bertrand]

The music he is holding is the project in question, Iphigenia.

I thought the Kennedy Center was at least partially funding it. Maybe not.

I hope there is a livestream option...

Edited April 10, 2021 by bertrand