Beckett Play

"I gave up before birth,
it is not possible otherwise,
but birth there had to be…"
—Samuel Beckett, fizzle 4

Samuel Beckett's austerity, combined with his love of play in all the meanings of the word, provides a staging ground for NEC's Contemporary Improvisation students to embark on adventures in "post-post-minimalism" under the guidance of Anthony Coleman, who also provides Entr'actes over the course of the evening.

Jeremy Barrett will perform his arrangement for vibraphone and marimba (with Laurel Black) of Philip Glass's String Quartet No. 2, which Glass wrote for a production of Beckett’s memoir-like Company.

Using trumpet and electronics, Mark Goldstein will perform his ah ih eh ay oh ur ow ih / Uh ih aw eh iy ee ah / ah ah eh oo, a response to the "Up pig!" segment of Waiting for Godot.

Jeff Balter's Gray employs voices and sound objects to evoke the "nameless things" and "thingless names" of Molloy. Balter is joined by Natalie Cadet, Leah Hennessy, Andria Nicodemou, and Abigale Reisman.

Jason Belcher and Tara Mueller sing with chord organ and violin in Belcher's auditory expansion of Texts for Nothing #13.

Andria Nicodemou's How It Is… responds to "the whole story from beginning to end" of the novel of the same name (sans ellipsis).

Rachel Panitch has created a complete, fully instrumental rendering of the play Come and Go, a highly choreographed meeting of three female friends. Performers are Sarah Jarosz on mandolin, Andria Nicodemou on xylopohone, and Vessela Stoyanova on melodica.

A different response to this play comes from Natalie Cadet, whose Art Museum uses the voices of Neha Jiwrajka, Nedelka Prescod, Valerie Thompson, Akenya Seymour, plus the composer.

Arian Shafiee and Mia Friedman will perform martingales, an electro-acoustic depiction of the famous section of the novel Molloy where the title character schematically passes stones back and forth between pocket and mouth.

Joelle Wagner's Súile traochta. Béil cráite is a mashup of Beckett's Film and Anthony Minghella's film of Beckett's Play.

Leah Hennessy's vocal creation two fools, among others interprets Beckett's self-characterization quoted in her title.

Eden MacAdam-Somer's No One to Ask is a recomposition from Die Winterreise (The Winter Journey), the late song cycle by Beckett's favorite composer, Franz Schubert.

Coleman's 16-piece CI ensemble Survivors Breakfast will perform sections of Words and Music, one of several works Beckett designed for radio broadcast.

Joe: Leah Hennessy
Bob: Lautaro Mantilla
Croak: Anthony Coleman

The remaining members of Survivors Breakfast are:
Joelle Wagner, bassoon
Andy Allen, Fausto Sierakowski, saxophone
Nigel Taylor, trumpet
Jason Belcher, baritone horn
Cale Israel, trombone
Arian Shaffiee, electric guitar    
Diamanda La Berge Dramm, Mia Friedman, Eden MacAdam-Somer, violin
Simon Hanes, Simón Willson, bass
Andy Fordyce, percussion
Andria Nicodemou, vibraphone

Lautaro Mantilla is joined by Anthony Ambrosio and Andrew Clinkman for the guitar trio Start Again, responding to one of the most enduring Beckett quotes: "I can't go on, I'll go on."

Coleman describes the gestation of this concert:

As always in CI thematic concerts, students draw from an enormous amount of potential material. How they choose what to work with, and how they decide to treat that material is all part of the process. Beckett engaged in the same process. He began his career as a follower of James Joyce. His developmental process consisted of assimilating this vast body of work, with its enormous erudition and its virtuosity of language, and whittling away…

Read Coleman's full notes on this concert, along with student-written descriptions of their works and the quotations that inspired them.