Wednesday, August 18, 2021

PROTOTYPE to Stream Musical Monodrama

Yesterday morning PROTOTYPE once again announced its latest free digital stream in its Opera | Theatre | X series. The Web page for this live-stream has already been created. Viewing will be available at no charge for one showing only. No registration will be required.

M. Lamar at the piano and Hunter Hunt-Hendrix controlling the electronic from his computer (screen shot courtesy of PROTOTYPE)

The work to be presented will be “Funeral Doom Spiritual,” a song composed by male soprano M. Lamar, who will provide his own piano accompaniment. He composed the score working with Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, who also provided both electronics and arrangements for strings. Additional arrangements have been prepared by James Ilgenfritz and the Anagram Ensemble. The libretto is also the product of a partnership, this time Lamar working with Tucker Culbertson. The entire production will be staged as a monodrama, coordinated by Tori Sheehan.

Lamar describes his work as “a song of mourning for what Anthony Paul Farley calls ‘the motionless movement of death through slavery, segregation, and neo-segregation.’” The music draws on themes of apocalypse, end times, and rapture found in Negro Spirituals, what Lamar calls “Doom Spirituals.” The libretto explores radical historical expressions and futuristic longings for destruction of the white supremacist world order. Voice and piano are accompanied by two basses, two contrabasses, and electronics, enveloped in immersive light and video.

This performance will begin at 4:30 p.m. (Pacific time) tomorrow, Thursday, August 19, streamed by Vimeo at no charge through the aforementioned Web page.

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