Program note:
Lost Objects is a musical exploration of the meaning of memory. With the spine of a baroque oratorio layered with the muscle of modern times, it is a powerful monument to the loss of people, things, rituals, ideas.
In their second major collaborative performance project, genre-defying composers Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe team up with polyphonic writer Deborah Artman to work a strange and beautiful alchemy of text and sound. The baroque virtuosity of the legendary Concerto Köln is challenged and stretched by the hard-edged electric Bang on a Can Lost Objects Ensemble and the avant-turntables of DJ Spooky. In the same way that oratorios such as Handel's Messiah were intended to be staged, the 3 vocal soloists and 30 voice chorus of LOST OBJECTS inhabit a mythic and beautiful stage world, under the direction of the acclaimed, award-winning director François Girard (''32 Short Films About Glenn Gould,'' ''The Red Violin'').
The result is LOST OBJECTS, a haunting, hallucinatory and humane musictheater piece for baroque orchestra, rock ensemble (electric guitar, electric bass, keyboard and drums), live DJ remix, solo voices and choir. The unique weave of sounds combines the resonance of animal gut and wood with the ethereal blend of soprano and countertenor voices mixed with the edgy force of amplified rock instruments and drums. ''LOST OBJECTS is a prayer hall, a hymn but also an invention,'' writes Ms. Artman. ''There is a narrative, somewhat sacred, but it is a fractured meditation. In the tenuous and hurried climate of the times we live in now, LOST OBJECTS asks us to pause and consider the grace bestowed upon each thing, person, animal and idea, the ordinary and the not-so-ordinary lost objects of our shared and vanishing culture.''
Creators
Music by Michael Gordon, David Lang, Julia Wolfe
Libretto by Deborah Artman
Directed by François Girard
Stage Design by François Seguin
Conducted by Daniel Reuss
Sound Design by Jody Elff
Lighting Design by Jane Cox
Projection Design by Peter Flaherty
Performers
Bang on a Can Lost Objects Ensemble
Concerto Köln
Elizabeth Keusch, soprano
Andrew Watts, Daniel Bubeck, countertenors
Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky
Produced by Bang on a Can
Review
...a score that examines loss as an inevitable consequence of historical development and as an enduring subject of human fascination...It is a huge canvas, and the composers fill it with a rhythmically assertive post-Minimalist score, written for an orchestra of Baroque-period instruments, a rock band, a chorus and soloists, and a D.J., who creates live electronic mixes as interludes.
Allan Kozinn, The New York Times
