TTU Celtic Ensemble / The Elegant Savages Orchestra
Sunday April 14 8PM | Hance Chapel | FREE & open to the public!
.
About this Program
Dances, listening tunes, and songs from England, Ireland, the American South, Pumpkintown, and Bassanda, with original choreographies and social dances, and tales of love & work.
About the Music
The Elegant Savages Orchestra is a “folk chamber orchestra” of winds, brass, strings, percussion, folkloric instruments, voices, and dancers, focusing upon the dance music and song of northern and western Europe and of the mysterious country of Bassanda.
About Tim Eriksen
Tim Eriksen is internationally known as one of the great living exponents of traditional American folksong and an innovative multi-instrumentalist whose solo acoustic performances push the boundaries of minimalism while tracing human experience. His background and ongoing collaborations cover a dizzying array of genres: hardcore punk, “shapenote,” Bosnian folk-pop, Carnatic classical, experimental electro-acoustic and symphonic music to name a few. Eriksen has taught courses in American and World Music at Dartmouth College, Amherst College and the University of Minnesota and published scholarship on early New England music in connection to 19th century abolitionism, apocalyptic theology, technology and the birth of science fiction, along with his extensive film and live music collaborations. His shapenote compositions are sung regularly around the world, and his song “I Wish the Wars Were All Over” was chosen by Joan Baez to be her final recorded musical statement. Adding to a long list of theater, film and dance collaborations, Eriksen has performed his ongoing original magic lantern musical theater piece “Pumpkintown” at venues across America and Europe.
.
About Bassanda and the Elegant Savages Orchestra
Major inspiration for the Elegant Savages Orchestra, the “big band” version of the TTU Celtic Ensemble, comes from the fictional country of “Bassanda”; a creation of Taos-based musicians and VMC partners Chipper Thompson (chipperthompson.com) and Roger Landes (rogerlandes.com). We imagined the fictional “Elegant Savages Orchestra”; in which, as part of an “alternate-history” frame, it’s alleged that a Soviet satellite’s official state folkloric ensemble (the “Bassanda National Radio Orchestra”) mutates, after the fall of Communism, into a free-lance ensemble engaged in a Never-Ending Tour. The BNRO/ESO has thus been heard in many permutations, including “The Classic 1952 Band”; “The 1962 ‘Beatnik’ Band”; “The 1965 Newport Folk Festival Band”; “The 1885 Victorian “Steampunk” Band”; the Post-Apocalyptic ‘Desert Pirates’ Band”; “The 1912 New Orleans Creole “Voodoo” Band”; the “1928 ‘Carnivale Incognito’ Band”; the 1934 “Intergalactic Pandemic Popular Front Band”; “The 1936 International Brigade Libertarias Band”;and “The 1942 ‘Casablanca’ Band.” Now, “The 1948 Berlin Air Lift Noir Band”:
After their clandestine contributions to the Bogart/Bergman classic film Casablanca (1942), the members of the BNRO find themselves in the beleaguered, lawless city of post-War Berlin, doing battle with Russians, gangsters, ex-Nazis, and even darker forces.
The Second World War was a global catastrophe. Beyond the millions killed, injured, murdered, and maimed, it also represented a worldwide global psychological trauma which set in motion forces which would dominate the second half of the industrial 20th Century. Shaping these regional conflicts was the global competition between nations aligned with the Soviet Union and those aligned with the United States. With Churchill’s 1946 “Iron Curtain” speech, leaders’ perceptions of “freedom” and “self-determination” hardened into simplistic metaphors about nations at risk of “falling like dominos.” In the wake of Churchill’s warning, Stalin ordered rail, road, and water access to the Allied sectors of Berlin blockaded. In response, over approximately 14 months of the “Air Lift,” the US and UK flew 250,000 missions, dropping food, fuel, supplies, and even candy for children. Those BNRO members who had remained in Hollywood, after completing their backstage and clandestine work on the Bogart/Bergman classic Casablanca (1942), in Spring 1945 flew out of Van Nuys Airport on board the electromagnetic, oscillating screw-retrofitted C-47 plane called Le Oiseaux Vert (The Big Green Bird). By early May Hitler was dead, Jodl had surrendered the German army at Rheims, and the Bassandans had disappeared into the beleaguered, lawless city.
Websites:
- http://ttucelticensemble.com
- http://elegantsavagesorchestra.com
- https://www.facebook.com/elegantsavagesorchestra/
- http://vernacularmusiccenter.org
- https://www.instagram.com/vernacularmusiccenter/
- https://twitter.com/MusicVernacular
- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPF44Ca2LY11FBz2xszI0vQ
- http://www.depts.ttu.edu/music/
- https://www.instagram.com/ttuschoolofmusic/
.
Can I participate?
Yes! If you are interested in participating in one of the VMC ensembles or partners (Celtic Ensemble, Early Music Ensemble, Balkan Ensemble, Elegant Savages, and/or Balfolk Lubbock, feel free to contact their respective directors (see vernacularmusiccenter.com/ensembles.html). Auditions typically occur in the first weeks of each academic semester.
.
The Vernacular Music Center at the TTU School of Music
The mission of the Vernacular Music Center is to provide a center for in-depth and comparative research, study, teaching and advocacy on behalf of the world's vernacular musics and dance—their construction, history, and role in defining cultural life in human communities—in all cultures and historical periods. The VMC is dedicated to the study of the process by which music is taught and passed on within a community, as well as assisting in the ongoing cultivation of arts on the South Plains. The VMC partners with its 501c3 partner, the Roots Music Institute (rootsmusicinstitute.com)
.
Become a Friend of the VMC!
Visit us at vernacularmusiccenter.org for more information!
Donations: http://www.give2Tech.com/, search “Celtic Ensemble VMC Gifts”
