This month brought the world premiere of Frankenstein by composer Mark Grey, with a libretto by Julia Canosa i Serra. Available online for streaming now.
Mark Grey
Grey’s Opera Frankenstein at La Monnaie
The Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie (Brussels), 2015/16 season will premiere a new opera by Mark Grey on Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein.
The powerhouse cast and artistic team includes: Scott Hendricks, Sasha Cooke, Malena Ernman, Christopher Gillett, Andrew Schroeder, Robert Hayward, Hendrickje van Kerckhove
Àlex Ollé and La Fura dels Baus creative team. Conductors Leo Hussain and Bassem Samir Akiki
Life and death in the light of technological progress
‘Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?’ Unlike the film that was later made of it, Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein told the sad story of a creature born out of a scientific experiment who strives for good, yet does evil and is consequently disowned by his creator. As a philosophical reflection on the human condition, on the technology that gives humanity power over life and death, and as a warning to a society that threatens to cast out the individual, the American composer Mark Grey returns to this original story for his first full-length opera, 200 years after Mary Shelley wrote it. Thanks to the extremely opulent visual idiom of Àlex Ollé and the inspiring conducting of Leo Hussain and Bassem Akiki, this world premiere promises to be a treat for both the eye and the ear.
Mark Grey’s THE SANDS OF TIME released by Other Minds
Other Minds releases works by Joan Jeanrenaud & Mark Grey as a part of the Other Minds Live series
Other Minds Records is pleased to announce a new series of digital download releases, Other Minds Live. OM Live is a collection of live recordings from past Other Minds Festivals, released to coincide with the landmark 20th anniversary of the Other Minds Festival. Widely regarded among contemporary music fans as a worldly intersection for non-commercial, challenging, and beautiful music, Other Minds has unflinchingly championed the work of composers and musicians committed to advancing our understanding of what constitutes serious music. This collection spans the wide variety of work presented at Other Minds Festivals in the first decade of the 21st century. From lush classical to stark minimalism to the outer limits of free improvisation and all points between, the Other Minds Live series represents a culminating experience from 20 years of tireless musical pursuit.
In keeping with OM’s artistic vision, OM Live includes work from some of the most renowned composers to appear at the Festival and places them alongside under-recognized composers of equally venerable talent. Highlights include Alvin Curran’s piano solo, Inner Cities 8, during which performer Eve Egoyan lulls listeners with sparsely scattered and gauzy piano impressions only to flare up unexpectedly in flourishes of quick moving, continuous sound; an engaging improvisation from Fred Frith & Sudhu Tewari that roams a sprawling soundscape where lush electronic thickets devolve into thorny scrapes and stabs; and a rare performance of John Cage & Michael Bach Bachtischa’s meditation on F#, One13, a posthumous Cage “number piece” that weaves live cello into a tapestry of pre-recorded drones.
Today marks the release of the first two pieces in the series, Joan Jeanrenaud’s Hommage and Mark Grey’s The Sands of Time, performed by Jeanrenaud. The Other Minds Live series is distributed by Naxos and will be available for purchase on iTunes and Amazon, and can be heard streaming on Pandora and Spotify. Take a listen and be sure to keep an eye out for the rest of the series, to be released monthly.
