Friday, April 13, The MetLiveArts presets The Wanderlusting of Joseph C., a performance by composer Joan La Barbara (CRF 2013).
Lyrics for the perfomarnce will be read by Monique Truong (CRF 2013).
Also featured:
Lauren Flanigan, soprano
Mario Diaz-Moresco, baritone
Miguel Frasconi, flute
Bryan Hayslett, cello
Monique Truong, lyricist
Composer and performer Joan La Barbara has been mining the life and work of Joseph Cornell for many years. In this free-with-Museum admission performance she presents selections from her epic song cycle “The Wanderlusting of Joseph C.” along with “Windows” and “Habité par ses rêves et les phantasms.”
Inspired by the obsessions, visions, and dreams of the American visual artist Joseph Cornell, “The Wanderlusting of Joseph C.” is a new song cycle composed by Joan La Barbara with lyrics by Monique Truong. “Wanderlust,” a word coined by Cornell and appearing often in his journals, captures the two longings, the two impossibilities–travel and eros–of this man’s outwardly quiet, staid life. In his dreams and his art though, Joseph C. transcends and revels in both wander and lust. The dreamscape prelude to the song cycle is “Windows,” a ‘sonic atmosphere’ La Barbara created from 13 years of instrumental, vocal, and natural sound recordings, inspired by Cornell’s journal entries and ethereal boxes and whispers from Virginia Woolf. “Habité par ses rêves et les phantasms” (2009) for voice and handheld percussion is the first work she composed inspired by Cornell and uses fragments from Joseph Cornell’s journals that describe elements of dreams, the catalysts for much of his work, to generate her sonic reflections.