Brazelton/Naphtali
What is it like to be a bat?

released on Tzadik's Oracles Series
in June 2003
TZ 7707

"The Oracles Series celebrates the diversity and creativity of women in experimental music making, bringing to the foreground the ongoing accomplishments of some of the most forward looking musicians working today."

And Zorn adds:

"Kitty Brazelton has been a mover and shaker in the downtown scene for well over a decade; a singer, bandleader and composer of striking originality. Along with Dafna Naphtali, she performs two extended suites of twisted, powerful chamber rock blending raucous punk aesthetic with vocal harmonies, noise and much, much more. Complex, visionary weirdness from two of the strangest minds in contemporary music."

To find out more go to the BAT? site

http://whatbat.org

http://whatbat.org/cd.html

or go to Tzadik

http://www.tzadik.com

where you can purchase the CD.

March 22, 2003

Erie Art Museum
411 State Street
Erie, PA 16501
phone: (814) 459-5477
fax: (814) 452-1744

March 7-9, 2003

REHEARSAL RESIDENCY

Margot Tenney
VAPA
Bennington College
Bennington VT

November 15-17, 2002

DANCECleveland, Cleveland Public Theatre, Cleveland, Ohio

Gina Gibney Dance

Time Remaining

www.ginagibney.org

DANSPACE PROJECT
St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery
131 East 10th Street New York, NY 10003

Danspace Project presents City/Dans:

Gina Gibney Dance

Time Remaining
(premiere)

Choreography and Direction by Gina Gibney
in collaboration with Angharad Davies, Kirsten Johansen, Jessica Lööf, Mariangela Lopez, Eden Mazer, Bethany Prater

Music composed by Kitty Brazelton
Performed live by David Bryan (countertenor), John Brauer (tenor), Keith Borden (baritone), Mark Lin (bass), Matt Goeke (cello), Alex Vittum (percussion) and Kitty Brazelton (laptop drones, artifacts & soundtracks)

Costumes by Naoko Nagata
Lighting by Kathy Kaufmann
Set design by Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss and Sabine von Fischer

For more information about Time Remaining and the creative process of collaboration, please visit www.ginagibney.org

Time Remaining is made possible by DANSPACE PROJECT'S 2002-2003 Commissioning Initiative with support from the Joyce-Mertz Gilmore Foundation, DANCECleveland, Music and Performing Arts at Trinity Cathedral, Live Music for Dance Program of the Mary Flagler Cary Trust, administered by American Music Center, Public Funds from The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, C. Virginia Fields, Borough President, State Senator Thomas K. Duane, Public Funds from The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs Cultural Challenge Program, The Bossak/Heilbron Charitable Foundation, and the Harkness Foundation for Dance. Residency opportunities for this project have been provided by 2002 DANCECleveland Creatvie Space Grant and Cleveland State University.

American Opera Projects
presents
FIREWORKS!
Conducted by Wendy Cavett
Directed by Grethe Barrett Holby
Music by Kitty Brazelton
Libretto by Billy Aronson

1-hour presentation outdoors in the park with 6 gorgeous singers and 5 fabulous musicians
for directions, please call AOP @ 718-398-4024 or goto: www.fortgreenepark.org
for more info about the opera, goto: aopinc.org

The story of a space traveler who discovers why
Americans shoot colored lights into the sky
every Fourth of July

Ann Hoyt (soprano)
Isabel Leonard (mezzo-soprano)
Crystal Williams (alto)
Michael Lee (tenor)
Scott Pattison (baritone)
Ivan Thomas (bass)

Antoine Silverman (violin, electric guitar)
Anja Wood (cello)
Bruce Williamson (clarinet, bass clarinet, flute, alto & bari sax)
Greg Landes (marimba, vibes, drum kit, congas & more)
Jason DeBord (keyboard)

Stage manager Nate Merchant
Sets & Costumes by Kelly Hanson
sound design by Manu Corazzini
lighting by Randy Glickman

Presented by American Opera Projects & the Family Opera Initiative in cooperation with the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation and the Fort Greene Park Conservancy Made possible in part by the New York State Council for the Arts (NYSCA) and the Jaffe Family Foundation.

Come celebrate the CD release

Kitty Brazelton: Chamber Music for the Inner Ear

FOOD, MUSIC (DJ Firehorse, Cyber-Ambiencer Dafna Naphtali and musicians(including Chris Washburne, members of the Manhattan Brass & many more) from the CD deconstruct what they played, ART (Ebet Roberts, Jon Isherwood and others) AND A RIVER VIEW!!!

click to learn more!!

Kitty Brazelton: Chamber Music for the Inner Ear

CRI Emergency CD 889

ordering info  info about CD party4/7/02 info about CD---tracks & notes by Frank J. Oteri

American Opera Projects
Grethe B. Holby, Artistic Director
Charles Jarden, Managing Director

A hilarious comic opera about a benevolent alien
who is sent to earth to find out why we shoot
colored lights into the sky at the same time each year

FIREWORKS!
Music by Kitty Brazelton
Libretto by Billy Aronson

Music Director: Steve Osgood
Stage Director: Grethe B. Holby

Complete concert reading of a new opera
December 7 & 8, 2001, 8:00pm

The Great Room at A.R.T./NY
138 South Oxford Street, Brooklyn 11217
Res: (718) 398-4024
Dir: www.aopinc.org
Adults $12
Students/Seniors $10

Relâche Ensemble
Philadelphia's premier ensemble for "downtown" new music
commission premiere for octet (flute, oboe, sax/clarinet, bassoon, viola, bass, steel drums/percussion, piano ) with Brazelton singing

as the day goes by…

requiem for Sept. 11th

Fri., Nov. 30 at 7:30pm
Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts (DCCA)
200 South Madison Street
Wilmington, DE 19801
302.656.6466

Sat. Dec. 1 at 7:30pm & Sun. Dec. 2 at 3:00pm
Philadelphia Ethical Society
1906 South Rittenhouse Square
Philadelphia, PA 19103
215.735.3456

as the day goes by… reflects my reactions to the September 11, 2001, attack on the city where I live. Commissioned spring 2001 by Philadelphia new music ensemble Relâche for a 12-18 minute chamber octet, this was not the piece I expected to write. Nor, even in October 2001, the piece I wanted to write. I have gotten a lot of solace out of the openness with which my fellow New Yorkers have shared their feelings since the attack. However they and I share, too, a reticence to formalize or make these feelings more than privately expressed. But when I sat down to write the octet on October 3, with only a month before the ensemble would need to see a finished score in time to prepare for the premiere performances on November 30, December 1 and 2, I found I had no choice. The twin tower tragedy was all I could write about. The music I've written should not be interpreted as some literal soundscape particular only to events of September 11th—I have tried to draw from the specifics to create something more universal—so if the listener doesn't choose to relate it to September 11th, she/he welcome to perceive on an absolute musical level. I have tried to portray the emotional process of struggling to comprehend something violently incomprehensible. I try to enact the jagged dissonance between the juxtaposed flashbacks—the first, to what it was like before, and the inevitable second, to what it was like then, during the event. What is the nature of the innocence of "before"? Are the spores of what was to come now perceptible in hindsight? And the impossible horror of "then"—can there ever be resolution or redemption? In the middle of as the day goes by… the Trinidadian steel pan played by Harvey Price emerges. I imagine the instrument as a sort of angel. The melodies and sounds from "before" and "then" are re-integrated more gently, bending and softening to each other in a shimmering Afro-Caribbean timbre—I call that part "song." I conclude the section "song" with two songs, specific references from the outside world: one, the medieval Catholic requiem chant "dies irae" (day of wrath) with text from the original 12th-c. poem (which is even more eerily predictive of the firestorm and ashes of September 11), interwoven with two, a melody I have transcribed from a reading of the Koran. Because use of this melody and text may be offensive to those who practice Islam, I only use the opening word "bismillah" (blessed be), and I am willing to alter the word so as to make it unrecognizable if an audience member is uncomfortable. My intent is to make consonant these texts and melodies and by inference, the civilizations they represent. I don't know if the listener will find resolution or harmony in As the day goes by—I hope so—it would be a way that I could help. In the end, though, the horror and consequences of September 11th are something only the passage of time will heal "as the day goes by…"

May18-20, 2001

Wisconsin

Kitty Brazelton joins Joan Tower and Chen Yi for Lawrence University Weekend Retreat on Women Composers.

NEWS RELEASE Contact: Ann Braithwaite/Christian Wissmuller For Immediate Release (617) 547-3377 chris@bkmusicpr.com

KITTY BRAZELTON FEATURED IN CONCERT AT LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY ON SUNDAY, MAY 20TH AS PART OF THE "WOMEN'S MUSIC FESTIVAL"

"One of the brighter lights on the downtown scene." - James R. Oestreich, New York Times on Kitty Brazelton

The music of acclaimed composer/performer Kitty Brazelton will be featured in concert on Sunday, May 20th as part of the Women's Music Festival (Lawrence University, Harper Hall). Susan Cook, Associate Professor of music and Director of graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will give a pre-concert talk, "What Does it Mean to be Thinking about Women in Music?" The performance/lecture starts at 7:00 PM; Admission is free. For additional information, call (920) 832-6585.Website: www.lawrence.edu/news/events/.

Sunday's performance of Brazelton compositions will be the opening concert of the Women's Music Festival. Some of the Brazelton works to be performed by faculty and student musicians will include: "Eight-Eyed Spy," a piece for flute octet; "Dogwood Petals and Hormones," the first movement from the brass quintet arrangement, "Come Spring"; and "Como Una Tromba Larga," a composition written for trombone and pre-recorded sound - featuring trombonist Nick Keenan. Other featured composers in the Women's Music Festival include Joan Tower (Monday, May 21, 8:00 PM at Harper Hall), Chen Yi (Wednesday, May 23, 8:00 PM at Harper Hall), and Maria Schneider (Friday, May 25, 8:00 PM at Memorial Chapel).

May 11-13, 2001

Philadelphia

THE RELACHE ENSEMBLE PRESENTS: "21ST CENTURY COMPOSERS SERIES IV" FEATURING KITTY BRAZELTON, KYLE GANN, ANNIE GOSFIELD & LEROY JENKINS

FRIDAY, MAY 11 THROUGH SUNDAY, MAY 13 IN PHILADELPHIA

"One of the brighter lights on the downtown scene." - James R. Oestreich, New York Times on Kitty Brazelton

The Relache Ensemble presents a three-day series of performances from some of the most acclaimed names in contemporary music. The schedule is as follows: Friday, May 11, 8:00 PM at The Ethical Society (1906 Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia); Saturday, May 12, 8:00 PM at the Institute of Contemporary Art (36th & Sansom Streets, Philadelphia); and Sunday, May 13, 3:00 PM at Settlement Music School (Mary Louise Curtis Branch, 416 Queen Street, Philadelphia). Admission is $15; $10 for students and seniors; $5 for children under 12. For information or reservations, call (215) 574-8246 or visit www.relache.org.

PROGRAM

• Kitty Brazelton - "The Battle of X and Y"
• Annie Gosfield - "The Manufacture of Tangled Ivory"
• Leroy Jenkins - "Blue Jay on the Firescape"
• Kyle Gann - "Astrological Studies" (NEW RELACHE COMMISSION!)

Kitty Brazelton is a composer and improviser, rock mezzo, multi-instrumentalist, leader of the rock nonet, Dadadah (Love Not Love Lust Not Lust, Buzz Records July 1999;Rise Up!, Accurate Records, 1994), and co-leader of the punk-digital trio What Is It Like To Be A Bat? She received her doctorate in composition from Columbia University in 1994, and has drawn on everything from medieval plainchant to funk ostinati since leading the progressive rock band Musica Orbis in the Philadelphia area in the 1970's. She has performed at the Bang on a Can, New Music America, USArts (Berlin), Texaco New York Jazz, and Knitting Factory "What is Jazz?" festivals. She has written for pop singers Terence Trent D'Arby, Joan Jett and Madonna; choreographers Beth Leonard, Eduard Zieger, and Philadelphia's Group Motion; and the New Music Theater Ensemble (Minneapolis). She teaches at NYU and Columbia University, and is BMI composer-in-residence at LaGuardia High School of Music and Art. She has collaborated with AOP on Hildegurls' Electric Ordo Virtutum, which was performed at the Lincoln Center Festival in 1998.

Kyle Gann is an acclaimed composer whose music has been performed on the New Music America, Bang on a Can, and Spoleto Festivals, and across Europe. His adventurous, often microtonal, pieces have rhythmic roots in Hopi, Zuni and Pueblo Indian music. Gann has been the new music critic for the Village Voice since 1986 and is the author of The Music of Conlon Nancarrow (Cambridge University Press, 1995) and American Music in the 20th Century (Schirmer Books, 1997).

# # # CDs, b/w photos, press kits available. ----------------------NEWS RELEASE Contact: Ann Braithwaite/Christian Wissmuller For Immediate Release (617) 547-3377 ann@bkmusicpr.com/chris@bkmusicpr.com

April 27- 28, 2001, 8pm
at American Opera Projects
138 So. Oxford St. Brooklyn, NY

AMERICAN OPERA PROJECTS - FIRST CHANCE - FIRST-TIME OPERA WORKSHOP

Scenes 15-19 from Fireworks (words by Billy Aronson, music by Kitty Brazelton) presented by American Opera Projects in their new home near Brooklyn Academy of Music. Reservations required 718/398-4024. Seating is limited. Excerpts from four operas in the Family Opera Initiative will be heard. Steve Osgood, music director. Grethe B. Holby, dramaturg.

• Beautiful Warrior
• Selfish Giant
• Gawain
  - Intermission -
• Fireworks

March 6, 4pm, 2001

LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and the Performing Arts, Winter Composition Recital, hosted by Kitty Brazelton, BMI Composer In Residence. Free.

February 27, 2001, 7pm

at The Cutting Room
19 W. 24th NYC

ASCAP Foundation presents Kitty Brazelton, Arthur Campela, Todd Reynolds and Evan Ziporyn in "Thru the Walls", a series curated by composer/performer Martha Mooke. The Cutting Room, 19 W. 24th St. (B'way-6th) in Manhattan. Doors open at 7pm. Brazelton is first with Kyrie, Gloria and Credo from ordinary, mass. She will sing and play electric bass accompanied by Nioka Workman, electric cello, Judith Davidoff, bass viol, Harvey Price, steel drums and Tony Lewis, drums. Admission $10.