See the original film here.
See the original film here.
| SCENES FROM THE ACCLAIMED NEW MUSIC-THEATER WORK INTRODUCED BY ELAINE L. LARSON Semmelweis is produced by The American Opera Project and New York Academy of Medicine Music by Ray Lustig Libretto by Matthew Doherty Music Direction by Mila Henry Stage Direction by Matt Gray December 5 | Tuesday at 6:30 pm New York Academy of Medicine 1216 Fifth Ave. at 103rd Street New York, NY, 10029 One of medicine’s greatest pioneers and unsung heros, until sung in this opera – maverick Hungarian doctor Ignaz Semmelweis – the man whose research could save many millions of mothers’ lives. The setting is Vienna c. 1840, a city of artistic and scientific revolution, thousands of women are dying in childbirth each and every year. Only Dr Semmelweis can see the invisible killer at work, but to stop it, he must convince his colleagues to admit culpability and approve change. Semmelweis composer Ray Lustig and NYAM Senior Scholar-in-Residence Dr. Elaine Larson will discuss the development of this opera and the lasting impact of Dr. Semmelweis’ life and work before the 45-minute concert. Reception to follow. |
| FEATURING PERFORMANCES BY Sophie Delphis, Matthew Bryan Feld, Samantha Martin, Charlotte Mundy, Guadalupe Peraza, Marcy Richardson, Megan Schubert, Joy Tamayo, Amelia Watkins, with instrumentalists Leah Asher (violin), Peter Flint (accordion and organ), and Nissa Kahle (piano and organ) |
Bang A Gong Presents:
The Wednesdays @ 8pm
MANICBURG @ 9pm
Debacle @ 10pm
$10 Tickets in Advance
$15 Tickets at the Door
21+ w/ID (or all ages if accompanied by adult)
Photos by Varo Barahuna
It took ten years, but LATENCY CANONS is finally released. Ten years from its Carnegie Hall premiere it is now out on a magnificent recording. It was a technically-nearly-impossible idea even back in 2013, to make symphonic-scale music live over the internet. But my friend the conductor and composer Paul Haas believed in the piece and kept trying. The result is this gorgeous recording by Symphony of Northwest Arkansas (SoNA) with three composers, and three very moving works that all speak to connecting with our hearts over huge distances, across impossible barriers, through hard times, from generation to generation. Canon is the musical practice that involves self-similar entities offset somehow, by time or pitch, or by random internet delays, or by pandemics. A delay, but a connected and meaningful one. Fitting! I hope you’ll get a chance to engage with this music.
Audiences and performers alike dispersed and networked together in real time – American Composers Orchestra at the DiMenna Center, NYC, conducted by Peter Askim; the Bergamot Quartet in the Murray Hill Groupmuse location, NYC; Ligeti Quartet and Alexandra Quartet from the United Kingdom.
https://americancomposers.org/2021/10/13/composer-spotlight-ray-lustig-bridging-distance-with-music/
On Saturday, October 23, 2021, ACO and Groupmuse Foundation co-present New Canons, a hybrid virtual and in-person performance featuring the world premiere of Cohere by Trevor New and an ACO-commissioned work, Latency Canons by Ray Lustig, from 2013.
Renowned France Culture producer Christine Lecerf‘s latest multi-episode documentary series dives deep into the world and work of Ignaz Semmelweis, and features a discussion with Semmelweis composer Ray Lustig, as well as clips from the work.
SoNA Announces Vision for Newly Reimagined 2020-21 Season
The second full-orchestra virtual concert is planned for a Spring 2021 release, featuring a contemporary program native to the digital realm. For this performance, SoNA will be working with composer Ray Lustig on his piece Latency Canons, a work that is meant expressly for the digital space and that uses the latency inherent in digital communication platforms for musical effects. Connecting with the current moment, Latency Canons takes the unintended and artfully reframes it into musical splendor. Both virtual concerts will be performed under the direction of SoNA Music Director Paul Haas, with additional details to be announced at a later date.
Discussion and Q&A to follow, with Ray Lustig (composer), Matt Gray (general director of The American Opera Project), David Finegold, MD (Univ. of Pittsburgh faculty of Human Genetics), and Cindy Bryce, PhD (Univ. of Pittsburgh faculty of Health Policy and Management)
More info on SEMMELWEIS: https://doctor-semmelweis.com/
Irina Solinas (Milan, Italy), Anjana Rajagopalan (Chennai, India), Huda Asfour (Washington, DC, USA), Ray Lustig (New York, USA)
“…in “Semmelweis,” New York-based composer Raymond J. Lustig tells his story as a musical “death dream” of sorts, with compelling beauty and eerie prescience”
Michael Andor Brodeur, The Washington Post, “Music for the pandemic: A hand-washing opera, a fanfare for nurses and a socially distant chorus” April 29, 2020
Watch complete production here, available on-demand thru May 31:
www.doctor-semmelweis.com
“scintillating, mystical …hauntingly beautiful…Lustig’s choral writing and orchestrations made the most impact…dreamlike…stunning”
Streaming here until May 31: www.doctor-semmelweis.com
“the almost entirely female cast of SEMMELWEIS unleashes soprano voices swirling into the ethereal… standout stagecraft that glues us to the story, seeming to add a visual poetry dimension…exotic…a seductive spell.”
Watch complete production here, available on-demand thru May 31:
www.doctor-semmelweis.com
Jocelin Pan (New York, NY)
Erin Wight (Seattle, OR)
Leah Asher (New York, NY)
Diana Wade (Los Angeles, CA)
Victor Lowrie (Brooklyn, NY)
Pemi Paull (Montreal, Canada)
An 24-hour worldwide festival of music and art on Earth Day, April 22. Six violists join in place to create CLOUDS IN SINGLE FILE. Airing 12:15pm EDT (don’t forget to check your time zone!)
Jocelin Pan (New York, NY)
Erin Wight (Seattle, OR)
Leah Asher (New York, NY)
Diana Wade (Los Angeles, CA)
Victor Lowrie (Brooklyn, NY)
Pemi Paull (Montreal, Canada)
SEMMELWEIS tour continues with a stop at the Kecskemét Spring Festival
The recently announced March 27-28 2019 performances of SEMMELWEIS in Budapest have sold out. Stay tuned for additional opportunities to see SEMMELWEIS
Gulyás Gábor, Papago, “Clean hands,” January 13, 2019
“…a spectacular project…a non-typical opera…outside of musical genre here in a particularly compelling way, given the question of opera vs. operetta of the Operetta Theater, and that the female chorus and soloists give the overture and the main themes.”
“The narrative is not lost in details (dramaturg: Diána Mátrai Eszter). The story is not the least ornate; we don’t see much about how Semmelweis gets to his current renown; neither is the emphasis on the psychological analysis of his madness. The work focuses more on highlighting truths beyond the specific cases, and this gives the basis of the direction of Martin Boross.”
“The world-class, beautiful video (Dávid Maruscsák) also serve the purpose”
Press from the Budapest premiere of SEMMELWEIS, September 28, 2018:
Noémi Herczog, Élet és Irodalom, “I wash my hands,” October 19, 2018
“the strength of Semmelweis as a written piece is its music: the choir singing in countless parts and the acoustic sections reminiscent of Philip Glass, opposing these the musical-like arias”
“The current director, György Lőrinczy…calls for [genre-defying works] many times and gives complete freedom to some creators who are thinking of a non-operetta but not pure genre. It is not a criticism if I say that presentations have changed but have not changed their hopes, since it is the essence of experimentation.”
“…we have found that established institutions can constrain the young director who wants to renew it. Boross Martin’s Semmelweis is perhaps the first example of a case where this is the reverse.”
“[articulated] through strong images and without pre-digested clichés turning the fable of hand-washing into a contemporary message”
“tableaus, the gracefully proud movements of Julia Jakubowska. The choir appearing like Fates in a tragedy. ”
“in the feminine reading of the director, we can be made to recall the recent #MeToo movement”
Zsuzsanna Szekáry, Magyar Idők, “Soul-anatomy with Catharses,” September 29, 2018
“Even the next day I find it hard to find the words for this work, described as an ‘oratorical diagnosis,’ as it was such a gripping and unique experience.”
“Beyond the storyline itself, the play transmits impressions, images, and feelings: we look inside the soul of the self-defeating Semmelweis, who burns from his inner turmoil and the desire to act, and crumbles under the weight of guilt, shame, and self-accusation, conveyed onstage with profound empathy by Szilveszter P. Szabó.”
“Similarly, towering was the performance of Veronika Nádasi who authentically brought to life the despair of the wife of a doctor balancing on the edge of insanity.”
“The other protagonists of the production are the Bartók Béla Chamber Choir of Szolnok, who sang with astounding professionalism, often in eight parts, at times ethereal and other times dissonant and unpredictable, suitable to their haunting role, for which the Budapest Operetta Theater Chamber Orchestra provided live music using special instruments.”
“spectacular…the choir, soloists, and contemporary dancers, all representing women who have died of childbed fever, come together to haunt Semmelweis”
“a performance that provoked multiple catharses for me…one of the best theatrical productions of recent years”
“[Music director] Dániel Dinyes , who is also the conductor of the performance, played a great role in the music’s interpretation…he is always a guarantee for emotional, fierce, quality gameplay.”
“the 16-women choir (Bartók Béla Szolnok Chamber Choir), mostly represent the spirits of dead mothers who are constantly tempting Semmelweis. They are present as the audience enters, singing, which sets the appropriate atmosphere, and their introduction is well-conceived.”
“…video in the background, on the stage wall, only adds to the visual world. Just as spirits (Anna Biczók, Júlia Hadi, Julia Jakubowska, Lili Raubinek) who, as Semmelweis’s team of doctors, or as a parent or dying mother, bring a real motion-theater dimension to the stage.”
“in the last third of the story…we can get an insight into their married life. In addition to being the most beautiful part of the opera’s opera… [Veronika] Nádasi once again proved that she is one of the most powerful actors in the Operetta Theater.”
“[Semmelweis’s] despair and struggle are particularly touching, as evidenced by the high number of spectators’ handkerchiefs…”
“truly contemporary direction that is filled with great ideas.”
“well worth seeing as it has so much to offer ”
Andrea Stub, stubandrea.hu“Napló,” September 30, 2018
“The visual world of the performance is almost astute, but still precisely poetic: three pulpits horizontally divided, and above them the actors: mourning women in black, their golden gloves tracing white and bloody stripes flooding the walls – this impressive view is the start.”
“considering that both an autopsy and a birth happen on stage, every action is theatrical and beautifully stylized”
Press from the Miskolc world premiere, June 9, 2018:
Federica Fanizza, Sipario, Italy, “In search of the new opera,” June 17, 2018
“the term ‘operetta’ must not mislead from the seriousness of the musical argument…solid dramatic construct”
David Toschi, operaclick.com, Italy, “Miskolc – Teatro Nazionale: Semmelweis”
“No sentimental story in the romantic style, no concession to mythologies or stories of the supernatural, nothing like a hero story”
“… an opera quite distinct from the genre of operetta or musical, allowing for an effective investigation of the dramatic features of the main character presented by Szilveszter P Szabó, who delivers excellently in both both acting and vocal interpretation…”
“The ‘oratorical diagnostic report’ is transformed into a work of contemporary music with a great many folkloric elements…a score both refined and primigenial, where the dialogical and rich singing of Szabó merges with the conspicuous and precise sound of the Chamber Orchestra of the Budapest Operetta Theater, and of the Bartók Béla Chamber Choir of Szolnok, well directed by the calm Dániel Dinyés”
“…stunning performances that allowed the work to masterfully realize the universal sound world conceived for this work by a particularly inspired Ray Lustig.”
“The success of the show is certainly a good omen as well for the scheduled performances at Budapest Operetta-Theater throughout the summer.”
“ethereal… mysterious… a colorful and rich musical composition”
Zsófia Hózsa, Fidelio, Hungary, “The surreal Semmelweis operated in Miskolc,” June 10, 2018
“unusual, convincing and imaginative work…floating…exciting and powerful”
Additional press from the New York concert showing, September 11, 2017:
- “powerfully resonant… gripping” – New York Music Daily
- “alternately austere and lustrous… otherworldly” – Lucid Culture
It’s official! In November, SEMMELWEIS will be touring to the cities of Salgótarján and Eger, then two performances in January in Debrecen, with more tour dates to come in 2019😀.
“a gripping and unique experience…spectacular…a performance that provoked multiple catharses…one of the best theatrical productions of recent years” — Magyar Midök
“ethereal…mysterious…a colorful and rich musical composition.” Csillagpont Radio, Hungary
“powerfully resonant…gripping” — New York Music Daily
“alternately austere and lustrous…otherworldly” — Lucid Culture
“unusual, convincing and imaginative piece…floating…exciting and powerful” — Fidelio
The upcoming seven-performance run of SEMMELWEIS at Budapest Operetta Theater has sold out, but new performances are being added in November and December 2018. Check back soon.
Some rehearsal photos from SEMMELWEIS, by librettist Matthew Doherty and me, which premieres Saturday, June 9, a co-production of the Bartok Plusz Opera Festival and Budapest Operetta Theater. With Szilveszter P. Szabó, Tünde Frankó, Enikö Lévai, Veronika Nádasi, The Bela Bartok Chamber Chorus of Solnok, Budapest Operetta Theater Chamber Orchestra (Gertrude Andrássy, Ákos Podráczky, Gábor Csonka , Ildikó Barabás, Dániel Patkós, Miron Kovács, Tamás Keller), Anna Biczók, Julia Jakubowska, Julia and Lili. Directed by Martin Boross. Dramaturgy by Diána Eszter Mátrai. Translation by Anna T. Szabó. Musical direction by Dániel Dinyés. Assistant conductor Szabolcs Hermann. Choreography by Anna Biczók. Set and projection design by András Juhász. Costumes by Jenny Horvath.
SEMMELWEIS is currently in rehearsals for its premiere full staging in Ignác Semmelweis’s native Hungary, co-produced by Budapest Operetta Theater and the Bartok Plusz Opera Festival, Hungary’s largest opera festival. Directed by Martin Boross, it will premiere on the festival in Miskolc, Hungary on June 9, and then go into repertory on Budapest Operetta Theater’s 2018-19 season.
We are especially honored to be bringing this work to life in Hungary this year, as 2018 marks the 200th anniversary of Ignác Semmelweis‘s birth.
21CM: “The future of classical music is…instagram.”
I’m super proud that students from my composition studio in The Juilliard School‘s Evening Division are mounting a group concert of their work this Friday, March 24. I got to hear rehearsals yesterday and am very impressed and excited about what they’ve created. These are intense and inspired musicians from a variety of very serious disciplines coming to Juilliard to explore pen-and-paper composition and techniques of the classical tradition more deeply. What they’re producing is fresh and exciting. And the musicians they are working with are A-MA-ZING! (see the whole lineup below) And I’m honored that they’ve invited me to put one of my pieces on their program 
This Friday, March 24th at the Historic Shepherd-Faith Church in Manhattan, a space renowned for its gorgeous acoustics.
A video posted by Ray Lustig (@raylustig) on
#turpentinereverie, another tiny #composagram #semmelweis
A video posted by Ray Lustig (@raylustig) on
Maybe you know someone who is musical and wants to start studying composition but doesn’t know how to being. Or maybe you are that someone. Do you know about the Juilliard Evening Division? It’s Juilliard’s extension school that offers open auditions to adult students of all backgrounds. I teach INTRO TO COMPOSITION, where my students get to learn and practice technical concepts within the context of creative projects, and your pieces get read by amazing Juilliard musicians. Now that’s how to learn to compose! It’s not expensive either, so don’t be shy. It can’t hurt to audition.
MORE INFO on the Juilliard website
The last few weeks I’ve been very fortunate to have my mysterious and ellusive writer collaborator friend Matthew Doherty drop in from Saudi Arabia, where he’s based these days. Fueled by 6 pounds of dizzyingly superb coffee he brought from his recent travels in Ethiopa, we worked intensely every day on our Semmelweis project. For the first time ever we were able to work side by side, actually choosing notes and words, rethinking, changing, etc. together in real time (instead of just passing things back and forth by email, or struggling to hear one another on Skype). Our do-it-yourself summer residency in my studio expanded when my amazing friends soprano Charlotte Mundy and bass-baritone Matthew Curran came by to record some of what we were writing for them. Having all this creative power in my tiny studio at once was, unfortunately sweltering on a hot summer day, but fortunately incredibly helpful in shaping out the new sound we are crafting for this project. We also had time to sit down with some directors, designers, producers, and friends of the project. Exciting. Stay tuned.
We did it! We reached our goal for this first round of funding for the Latency Canons Recording Project! A huge thank you to all of you who contributed*, emailed friends, posted, tweeted, shared, liked, pinned, spoke well of around the water cooler, or otherwise encouraged us in this very special project.
We have a ways to go yet to get to the final recording, but this is a terrific start that will really help push the ball forward. Thank you thank you thank you!
Thank you!
* A hearty thank you to all our RocketHub contributors:
Alice Lustig, Robert N. Downey, Conrad Cummings, Thomas Campbell Jackson and Penny Jackson, Jim O’Brien, Peter Flint, Bryan Hurley and Kerry Grennan, Euginia Paik, Steve Paik, Hooman Mehran, Jim Crystal, Douglas Hepworth, Regina Lustig, Mary E Todd, Bill and Donna Marshall, Ana Berlin, Bill Brown, John Hamilton, Douglas Gibson, Nader Naeymi-Rad, Roy Niederhoffer, Fabio Bertagnolli, Ranjit Prasad, Heidi Jerome, Joshua Komyerov, Audrey Jakab, Mitsuyo Kurihara, David Corsini, Delia Berlin, James Sutton, Brian Meece, Dennis and Anne McGivney, Michael P. Clancy, Melissa Dusenberry, Patricia Calvo, Cheryl Chalmers, Samuel Buggeln, Clifford Hart, Carlynn Houghton and Simon Pratt, Elliot Cole, Ross Jeffcoat, Steven Blier, Matt Gray, Larry Siegel, Josh Ollswang, Catherine Chalmers, Eleanor Taylor, Gregory Gerard, Danielle Steinmann, Larry Lebow, Jayce and Tiffany Bartok, Andy Akiho, Sanae Nakayama, Aleksei Stevens, Lee Streby, MC Harford, Brian Shank, Eric Kuzmuk, Brad Balliett, Kathleen Minogue, Clayton Zeller-Townson, Judy L Gurzynski-Jones, Elena Kowalsky, Richard Gurzynski, Austin Bramwell, Conrad Winslow, John W Lustig, Clarice Assad, Aleem Hossain, Thomas Flippin
We’re in the final 20 hours of our LATENCY CANONS Recording Project, and LATENCY CANONS is so extra-specially exciting that RocketHub contacted me for an interview about it, which you can read here. Find out why everyone is so excited about this project, and why the New York Times finds this piece “…entrancing…surreally beautiful…ecstatic…rapturous.” And it’s still not too late to become a part of it by contributing or by helping spread the word about LATENCY CANONS. This is a really big project and we need all the help we can get. Thank you!
And please LIKE our Facebook page for this project!
This week marks my debut in China. Duo Noire is going on their debut tour in China and taking along my FIGMENTS. I wish I were able to go along too!
This is my biggest project yet, and I need your help! It’s a gleaming, gorgeous studio recording we plan to make of my “trans-Atlantic” piece LATENCY CANONS, working with New York’s super-talented Metropolis Ensemble (Grammy-nominated and Juno-award-winning), quartet Senza Misura, and 4-time Grammy-winning producer Tim Martyn. It’s going to be stunning and transcendent!
I would so love to have you be a part of it in any way you can. And here’s a relatively easy way, helping raise a big chunk of the funds through our Rockethub crowdsourcing campaign. Please consider donating whatever you can, and/or passing it along to those you think might be interested.
The music boxes for my new piece Kryształ Muzyki are done and delivered. Phew! It’s for ensemble plus my specially made music boxes, and I wrote it while traveling in southern Poland. You can read a bit about it here.
Here’s a photo from the house concert I put together, entitle Foot on the Ground, at the home of friends Thomas Campbell Jackson and Penny Jackson. Superb musicians William Bender, Mariella Haubs, Siwoo Kim, Rachel Kudo, Charlotte Mundy, Jocelin Pan, and Mina Um. Great to work with artists who are not only incredibly skilled but also up for experimentation in format, and even game to take on one new arrangement that was literally written that very morning over breakfast, with my 4yo daughter helping me make the parts. Phew!
Streaming all this week on WFMT radio Ohio, you can hear me introduce and talk about my Nissim Prize-winning orchestra composition UNSTUCK, written in response to Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5 and my grandparents’ long battle with progressive dementia. Emily Freeman Brown conducts the Bowling Green Philharmonia in an Albany Records recording. Also hear Steven Bryant’s intense Loose Id, and Avner Dorman’s stunning Variations Without a Theme.
More on that soon…
In the meantime, check out this sample of Carmina Slovenika. They’re performing their TOXIC PSALMS this week on the Prototype Festival in New York.
TOXIC PSALMS / Ultimate collective experience from Carmina Slovenica on Vimeo.
From TheaterScene.net, on my arrangement of Carlisle Floyd’s MARKHEIM”
“…Floyd’s original orchestration for Markheim is colorful and fluent, with lots of percussion, and arranger Raymond J. Lustig has managed to keep a lot of that. During the performance, I heard a woodblock but saw the percussionist was otherwise engaged. Where was it coming from? Eventually I realized it had cleverly been given to the second viola (though she did look like she’d rather be fiddling)...”
