Duke composer Stephen Jaffe's cantata "Songs of Turning" was influenced by the music of J.S. Bach. No surprise there. More unusual is the fact that it incorporates a letter to Ann Landers.
The piece, which will be performed at the March 6 gala concert for the Milestones Festival of New Music, examines issues such as guilt, forgiveness and the quest for inner peace. The work incorporates a letter to Ann Landers from a woman who killed a child in a drunk-driving accident. It also includes poetry to create a composition that, in Jaffe's words, "crosses sacred and secular boundaries."
Crossing boundaries is one of the goals of the Milestones Festival, a collaboration between the departments of music at Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill that is held every two years. Using venues on both campuses, the festival performances mix and move between the genres of "classical," "art" and "popular" music.
The festival, held March 2-7, showcases faculty and student composers from the two universities, although outside artists are also included. The complete schedule is available here.
In addition to Jaffe's piece, which will be performed at the Milestones Gala Concert in Memorial Hall at UNC, one of the highlights of Milestones 2007 is "Metal/Vox/Water," a performance by experimental vocalist and composer Pamela Z, who digitally processes her voice in real time to create layers of sound.
Another is a performance by the Zeitgeist Ensemble of Minneapolis. The four-musician group will present "Awaken," a new, collaborative work with music by Duke composer and music department chair Scott Lindroth and images by Anya Belkina, associate professor in the art department.
Lindroth says the new piece for animation and video will be accompanied by the Zeitgeist Ensemble playing percussion, saxophone, keyboard and electronics. The performance will take place in The Space in the Smith Arts Warehouse, with three screening areas, one for each segment of the performance, and the audience will move from one to the next as the performance unfolds.