Music for Theater & Dance
📀 New CD Release! 📀
Welcome back! During the months of being unable to play music in public, I had the opportunity to dig into my archives and revisit some older, beloved works of mine. The result of this is a new collection of eight instrumental works, re-recorded and newly produced! So, please allow me to introduce my newest CD to you:
Listen to the whole CD Playlist ⬇ (Or go ‘song by song’ below)
Photo: David Beecroft, Design: Alba Plaza
I also wanted to share with you, that if you are looking for a way to support me in my work, I’ve now joined Patreon.
Artists are not given much income from streaming services and very few people need or buy physical CDs anymore. Patreon offers an alternative source of income for us and a way for you to directly support the artists you enjoy.
So, if you are in a position to do so, your direct support would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
Liner Notes: The Blackbird “Music for Theater and Dance”
Back to the Music.
These works were all written originally for theater or dance companies, and are now fully developed as listening experiences and released anew.
The Modern Theatre of Myth
I developed the majority of this music working in New York City and on Long Island with Georgia McGill as a founding member of The Modern Theatre of Myth. As a company we worked together for twelve years from 1987 until around 2000 performing in New York and on Long Island and traveling to Greece, Hungary and Cyprus and Scotland for International Theater festivals.
We performed mostly environmental theater, which involved immersing the audience in the playing space, with actors having access in front of, behind, or beside the audience. We were close enough to touch, but this was still not participatory theater, as we commonly understand that term. We worked with minimal sets allowing the environment to be created by the actors, the lighting and the music. Our intention was to immerse our audience into the story by removing “the fourth wall” - the imaginary border between audience and actor - which is natural in traditional theaters where the front of the stage separates what happens on the stage (the imaginary world of the play), from the audience in an auditorium in the “real world”.
While it's true that we had to limit our audience size working in this style to a maximum of around 150 people, we felt the theatrical experience was far superior for our audiences so we worked this way for many years.
My role, as musician and composer, was to accompany the works from the first rehearsal and to develop the music within the rehearsal process. I would then accompany the plays by freely interpreting these musical landscapes live. By the time of the live performances, the musical themes and emotional shape of the journey was clear to me. The texts were not improvised in performance, but I did have to react to the actors impulses. The end effect was very organic and alive. Since I knew the plays well, I could be prepared for pivot points and I could to foreshadow them, support them or push against them as needed. We also found that we could create “environmental scene changes” with music alone very effectively.
Back to the present! For these new recordings, I was delighted to be able to enlist the New York percussionist, dear friend and professional wildman Rex Benincasa to perform on the CD with me. He was also part of the team with us a number of times in New York. The Berlin-based drummer Leonardo von Papp also played on the recording here and performed with us live in Berlin. Also, I am honored that Karola Elßner again appears in this collection with her haunting Armenian Duduk. I'm delighted they all are present on the CD, and thank them for their talent and support throughout.
Song Credits and Notes:
1- Mad In Craft
(Hamlet)
This work comes from the Modern Theater of Myth's New York production of “Hamlet”, directed by Georgia McGill. I very much enjoyed having the space to expand the composition for CD. I enjoyed using mirrored jazz guitars and Rex Benincasa's Doumbek playing as the basis of this sound.
I wrote this music for the scene in which Hamlet decides that he will feign madness as a strategy of staying alive and avenging his father’s murder.
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The Blackbird: 1974 Ibanez Artist Electric Guitar, Darbuka, Voice, Percussion, Keyboards.
Rex Benincasa: Doumbeks, Triangles.
2- Jiva Dances for Atman
(Ellen Rooney Dance Theater)
I met Ellen Rooney as MToM brought our production of the Oedipus the King to the stunning Ancient Amphitheater in Epidaurus, Greece. We were the first American Company to perform there.
Epidaurus, Greece
Ellen had a dance theater of her own, and approached me to compose a piece for an idea she had. This recording here, is essentially that composition, after being re-orchestrated quite a bit. But the melodies and the structure is the same. I'm playing an Electric Sitar as the lead instrument here, but Leonardo is the star of this piece, capturing a very Indian kind of featured solo on a western drum set.
The title of the song refers to the following Upanishad in India, the story of Jiva and Atman:
“Two identical birds that are eternal companions perch in the very same tree.
One eats many fruits of various tastes. The other only witnesses without eating.
— Mundaka Upanishad 3.1.1; translation by Swami Rama”
The Blackbird with his Electric Sitar Photo: Anna Knaifel
Jiva leaves the tree to enjoy sweet fruits, Atman stays and watches. Here is a wonderful commentary on this. The separation of this couple can invoke many morales, but what I see in that image is that Jiva is the Individual Soul incarnated in matter, and Atman is the Transpersonal Soul who remains upon the tree above Earth and matter - and yet they are still a couple. They are us. Our individual souls here, incarnated in matter, and our transpersonal spirit, which remains always in the spiritual realm - and again: we are bound to each other - a couple.
In this song, I envision Jiva “dancing” for Atman, something like the “Eve” of India, for why should she not enjoy the fruits she is capable of enjoying? I picture it as a gentle seduction, full of grace and worldly wisdom. While the story is traditionally filtered through masculine culture, I do see it differently. I see their love, and I feel no judgement in either of them. Jiva and Atman do suffer from the distance between them, but in no way does this weaken their connection.
In the myth I find a tapestry, rich with connections and separations, love and longing, seduction and acceptance which I cannot unravel into a simple string of logic for you. This song has been called “Folk Dance #1” for more than fifteen years, but I was quite troubled by the lack of an appropriate title for it, as I put this collection together. Finally, as I spent time with this song, and sought a title, this mythic tale is the one which landed and offered itself. The way Jiva Dances for Atman, (what emotions do you see in her eyes?) and in the way Atman watches her (and what do you feel in his?).
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The Blackbird: Electric Sitar, Bass, Clay Drum, Sound Design, Programming, Keyboards
Leonardo von Papp: Drums
3- Ask
(from Sophocles' “Antigone”)
I remember the day I learned that some names in Ancient Greek were very much like names which come from vision quests in the Native American cultures. Antigone, for instance means “The Last Light of Day”, that beautiful, colored sky after the sun has set, but before darkness, and Oedipus means “Swollenfoot”.
The Greek works have always displayed an immense depth of wisdom about how the human mind and the spirit struggle with each other. Oedipus’ daughter Antigone (The Last Light of Day) represents the last of a line of divine kings. Her father Oedipus has died by now, and her warring brothers have killed each other in a final battle, leaving only Creon, the queen's brother, and military general, to rule the land. His reign, not being descended from a god, ends the line of divine kings in Thebes.
The law says: “He who raises an army against his own land may not be buried in the soil of that land”, and the military minded Creon intends to uphold this law. While this seems logical to this very human king, the conflict is that there are also divine laws, which must be weighed in any ruling, and to deny a divine prince’s ritual burial, condemns his soul to eternal wandering and exile from all worlds, upper and lower. How likely is it that the gods, whose blood ran in this prince’s veins, will accept the authority of this very human king in his matter?
The prince’s sister, Antigone cannot bear this, and she secretly buries her brother, against the orders of the king, condemning herself to death for defying the new king’s command. I see the play as the story of the final loss of the physical presence of divine beings on Earth.
This piece of music comes from the moments earlier in the play where Antigone struggles with her choices, her arguments for divine law, and the decision to bury her brother.
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The Blackbird: Concert Guitar, Voice, Keyboards, Sound Design, Percussion
4- The Shredding Song
(from Euripides' “The Bacchae”)
While not everyone agrees with me on this, I like to think of “The Bacchae” as the play many people cannot see even when they look at it. In fact, in my experience, the harder they look, the more their eyes are diverted away from what is there. I find this effect fascinating. In fact, we can almost say the same about the god Dionysus. In my experience, some seem to be held under a geasa and simply cannot see what stands before them with this story or this god.
The god of wine? Yes and no. The god of intoxication? Sort of. What is it that Dionysus is?
We'd have to take another step backwards and from safer ground examine next: what is a god to an ancient Greek? Apollo can be rightfully called the god of light and enlightenment. Apollo is a god of reason, clarity and sobriety. Apollo and Dionysus are often held in opposition, but again, once Dionysus enters the discussion things get complicated, so be careful.
Are the followers of Dionysus benighted, irrational, confused and intoxicated? Well, yes and no. You see, we must not forget that Dionysus is a god, not a demon. The cult of Dionysus was quite real. So if we are to understand him at all, we have to find a way to embrace the Night, Madness, Confusion and Intoxication as sacred things, and not human vices. (Can you feel the some people backing away?).
To worship Dionysus involved an annual rite, where the city would dress up in animal skins, drink, dance, drum, sing and be sexually free. And this was the god’s only demand. Once a year you entered the sacred night, embraced the experience of being without rationality, free of reason, immersed in ‘madness’ fully intoxicated - being completely free in your own body along with everyone else in the city. One night a year. Then Dionysus moved on. You see the problem, perhaps. This was a sacred rite, not an evening of debauchery. This was something humans were religiously commanded to experience and honor.
In fact, this is what Greek rites were about: there was a god of war (Ares), a goddess of love (Aphrodite), a god of falling in love (Cupid), fertility (Demeter), marriage (Hestia), there were those who were inspiration (the Muses), those who guarded destiny (the Fates), the god of death (Hades), the goddess of seasonal transformation (Persephone), Zeus and Hera the father and mother gods, Gaia and Uranus (The Grandmother Earth, and the Grandfather Sky), Poseidon of the sea, and so on. Anything a human could experience had it’s god, a divine being and in this pantheon of gods and goddesses, all of them demanded to be honored in one way or another.
So, if we can agree so far, that this pantheon of human experiences was to be honored and envisioned as gods - as divine. Perhaps you wonder: what if they did not honor these gods? This “what if” is what Greek tragedies are made of.
Back to the Bacchae and Dionysus. A Human king openly defies the demand of Dionysus, and tries to shut down the rite honoring this god. He tries to shut down the human experience which Dionysus represents. Now, which experience is this? Wine, intoxication, dancing, sexuality, ‘madness’ (the lack of rationality) under the eyes of the stars in the sacred night?
For me, the experience is ecstasy. This is the human experience which is in opposition to Apollo, and yet not untrue. Dionysus and Apollo represent the living divine energies of Ecstasy and Enlightenment. We are our best when each is granted it’s own holy ground within us. And it is important to remember that with ecstasy, one night a year is the dosage, on command of the god himself, but he will not be denied. Denying him is the road to madness and catastrophic violence - he cannot be oppressed. This is what the king learns, and this is what the play is.
Is the violence we see today from people who believe themselves to be religious somehow related to this? Do these religions oppress human ecstasy and separate us from the wild sacred night? Is intoxication frowned upon? Sexual freedom? Are we not still human?
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The Blackbird: All Mandolins & Electric Guitars, Sound Design, Keyboards, Percussion.
Leonardo von Papp: Drums
5- The Forest at the Edge of the World
(from Fiona Macleod's “The Immortal Hour”)
This piece is the only new composition in the collection. It comes from upcoming theatrical work which is still being written. “The Immortal Hour” was written by Fiona Macleod in 1899, and later the composer Rutland Boughton turned the play into an opera in 1912, which had over one thousand performances between 1914 and 1932. This work which grounded the Glastonbury Festival in England.
This is a profoundly original work based on Celtic Mythology. But, in truth, it is much more than based on Celtic Mythology, it is Celtic Mythology, because the story of the author may be as great a tale as the play itself.
I have already spoken about Fiona Macleod in my blog about the song “The Washer of the Ford” because it is also her text. So please feel free to visit that blog if you somehow still need more after all this.
“The Immortal Hour” is a major ongoing project for me, and I promise you have - in no way - heard the last about all this. Not to spoil any surprise, but there may well be a very special guest involved in this project. Quite exciting for me, I freely admit.
My good friend Karola Elßner was kind enough to lend her talents and she is featured here on the haunting Duduk, an Armenian double reed instrument, which you also heard featured on my CD “Retro”.
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The Blackbird: Sound Design
Karola Elßner: Duduk
6- Tireseas
(from Sophocles' “Oedipus the King”)
Tiresias (traditional spelling) somewhat is akin to the Greek Merlin, or even Tolkien’s Gandalf. While the Greeks didn't have wizards, they did have prophets, and Tiresias was one of those beings of immense age like Mahavatar Babaji of India or St. Germaine in Europe. Tiresias is present in many Greek stories, he is found in the Oedipus tales of Sophocles and the Bacchae of Euripides, and even in the Odyssey of Homer (which was written earlier than Sophocles, but the events of the Odyssey happen chronologically later than the Theban plays.)
Tiresias was a blind prophet who could see the future. The thing about blind prophets who can see the future is that they spend most of their time commenting on how useless it is to be able to see the future, and yet everyone seeks them out hoping against hope to gain some advantage over Fate.
Tiresias told of Oedipus' fate, both as a child and as a king, he warned Pentheus (in the Bacchae) not to battle the god Dionysus, and in the Underworld he told Odysseus how he could save his men from death, all to no avail. No one outwitted fate. (Odysseus, the trickiest of heros, however came damn close). Tiresias is ever present in the Greek tales. Over the MToM years with him appearing in so many plays we performed, I developed a real respect and affection for him, and was always a bit amazed that regardless which author presented him, he as a character was always very much the same. In the Bacchae, he even dressed in animal skins, and danced in honor of Dionysus, when the god came to town. Just for the record: Wise is as wise does.
Here Leonardo and Rex play together from halfway around the world, to wonderful effect.
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The Blackbird: Guitar, Keyboards, Percussion, Sound Design
Leonardo von Papp: Vibraphone
Rex Benincasa: Congas, Bongos
7- The Circle Dance
(from Dinunzi's “The Story of the Other Wise Man”)
Photo: Anna Knaifel Design: Ivana Kersting
The Circle Dance was first written for “The Bacchae”, but later I revived the piece for “The Story of the Other Wise Man” based on the book by Henry Van Dyke, which was the show the Modern Theater of Myth produced in Berlin in 2004. Artaban, the main character, is a Magi of the Zoroastrian religion, the religion which predates Islam in the area we remember now as Persia (Iran).
This piece is used as a celebration dance where Artaban invites his friends to journey with him, following the stars, to where the new king is born. This wonderful story runs parallel to the more famous story of the Three Wise Men. Artaban, the unlucky fourth, is unable to reach the manger in time with others due to obstructions on his journey. But the obstructions, we are to learn, are the journey. We all have our own paths to walk.
“For there are many, many ways to find that which we seek.”
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The Blackbird: Mandolin, 12 String Guitar, Electric Guitar, Tabla, Shakers, Keyboards
Leonardo von Papp: Toms, Tam Tam
8- Eteokles
(from McGill & Dinunzi's “Shattered Sun”)
The collection ends with “Eteokles”, who was one of the four children of Oedipus and the prince who died before the beginning of the play “Antigone”. Only seven of Sophocles' 120 works (!) have survived, “The Theban Plays”: “Oedipus the King”, “Oedipus at Colonus” and “Antigone”, being the best known. Our company had performed “Oedipus the King” and “Antigone” many times, and the artistic director of the company, Georgia McGill, wanted to try to develop a play which filled in the missing piece of history between “Oedipus at Colonus” and “Antigone” using actors who knew the characters and had deep history with them. This would have made it possible to enact the entire history of “the Theban Plays” for modern audiences. Enough mythology survived so that we did not have to create a story from nothing, we just had to give the existing myth it’s own life and voice.
We developed “Shattered Sun:, a work which we performed in NYC, and I found it a fascinating experience, but we also found that the same exact plot points in the mythology could be presented in many different ways - relationships could be inverted, and motives reversed and still the same events could be logically presented in the same order. Myth is like the hall of mirrors inside a crystal. And that is what The Modern Theatre of Myth was all about.
This piece was used as the musical theme of Eteokles.
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The Blackbird: Rhodes, Keyboards
The Blackbird: Music for Theater and Dance
Produced by Greg Dinunzi
Mixed & Mastered by Jörg Surrey, Surrealis Sounds @ Teldex Studio Berlin GmbH
Photo: David Beecroft Art Design: Alba Plaza
Special Thanks
Anna Knaifel, Tom Lynn, Georgia McGill, Kendall Korsgaard, Ellen Rooney, Phd.
and all the casts and crew of The Modern Theatre of Myth