Graduate Contextual Concert by Emma Mistele and Shawn O’Sullivan [New Time]

Saturday, November 9, 2024 at 6:00pm
Ring Family Performing Arts Hall

Free

Graduate music student Shawn O’Sullivan presents work by Sarah Hennies, Matt Sargeant, and Richard Teitelbaum. 

And graduate music student Emma Mistele presents “The Park” and “The Backyard” from Perfect Lives, a TV opera by Robert Ashley (1930–2014). Ashley’s original television opera is “about” bank robbery, cocktail lounges, geriatric love, adolescent elopement, et al., in the American Midwest. One of the definitive text-sound compositions of the late 20th century, it has been called a comic opera about reincarnation. 

After being developed as a live performance and touring media production, Perfect Lives was first broadcast in Great Britain in April 1984. It is widely considered to be the pre-cursor of "music-television." In recent years, several groups have revived the opera in various forms, notably Varispeed in site-specific day-long live events; Trystero in marathon, complete, performances, and Matmos in individual episodes in “pop” venues.

To learn more about Robert Ashley, please visit http://robertashley.org.

For information about other concerts by graduate music students, visit the Graduate Contextual Concerts series page.