AH! — NEW OPERA CONCEPT STILL EVOLVING —AH!

Opera No-Opera
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AH! is such an opera that is not an opera and is called an opera for our time. AH! is an offering for the betterment of humanity on Earth today. AH! is an environment for discovering. AH! is an immersive opportunity for illumination, a flight simulator for psychonauts. AH! is an opera. Composer-performer, David Rosenboom, and poet-writer, Martine Bellen, have worked for several years to develop an interactive, creative process that integrates sound and word composition in a new way such that music and libretto are not separate, are not different, a way that begins with the origins of both music and language, illuminating their power to both differentiate and to join human beings. AH! includes a set of thirteen stories linked on a mandala wheel that may be traversed in a variety of ways to experience an ever-turning array of narrative pathways. The performance realization of AH! received its premiere performances at REDCAT in Los Angeles in September 2009. The performances and some rehearsals were webcast around the globe. AH! continues its evolution now through the AH! website, DVDs of performances and a documentary, The Making of "AH!", and plans for more writing, more performance versions, and possibly a videogame. Interact with the AH! website here: ah-opera.org.

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Propositional Music — a long-term project to produce a book exploring threads extending throughout Rosenboom's music that elucidates an idea about emergent cognitive models as a basis for composition. A good hint at this point of view can be found in the following book chapter:

Propositional music: on emergent properties in morphogenesis and the evolution of music; essays, propositions, commentaries, imponderable forms and compositional methods. (2001). In Zorn, J. (Ed.). Arcana: Musicians on Music (pp. 203–232). New York: Hips Road and Granary Books.

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Naked Curvature (Four Memories of the Daimon) — Musicians from CalArts Chamber Music and Voice Programs, have recently performed and recorded the first complete realization of David Rosenboom's recent work: a whispered chamber opera in the form of a symbolic concerto grosso for six instruments, whispering voices, four sound effect textures (firmament, fluidity, air/breath, fire/hope), and interactive computer software. The project is in post-production for release soon. The work makes reference to A Vision, a mystical text by William Butler Yeats, and other texts by William Blake, Friedrich Nietzsche, William Shakespeare, the composer, and others. The performers on the recording include: Kimberly Turney, flute/piccolo; Brian Walsh, clarinet/bass clarinet; Abby Orr, percussion/midi percussion; Traci Esslinger, piano/midi keyboard; Noriko Yamaga, violin; Aniela Perry, cello; and Sylvia Desrochers, Kris Kennedy, and Marja Kay, whispering voices. Adam Overton, wrote interactive computer software for this realization. The project is in post-production for a CD release anticipated soon.

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Zones of Influence – work begun during the summer of 2002 to record this concert­length work written in the 1980s for percussion soloist, William Winant, interactive computer music system, the Touché (a digital keyboard instrument designed by Donald Buchla and David Rosenboom in 1979), and auxiliary instruments, is continuing with a target CD release anticipated soon . This work was performed extensively during the decade following its composition, but never fully documented in recordings. The new CD will bring this five­part work, which was inspired by the dynamics of morphogenesis, to light in a new form. A new software instrument inspired the the the original Touché, called Touché II, being developed in collaboration with Martijn Zwartes, will also be used in the new recording.