Versipel New Music Presents: Coming Together

Sunday, May 15, 2022
doors at 7:00pm | performance at 7:30pm
Suggested donation: $20 GA / $10 student, senior, etc.

For our season finale concert, Versipel New Music presents a program of works centered upon the idea of upheaval and fluctuation as a catalyst for positive change. Moving forward demands a broader context for understanding how the past shapes the present.

At the center of the concert are two companion master works by Frederic Rzewski – “Coming Together” and “Attica”. These pieces address the events of the September 1971 riot at Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York, when demands for improved living standards by inmates led to a violent confrontation. The text for “Coming Together” comes from the journal entries of activist Samuel Melville who was killed during the riot. These works encapsulate the urgency of this event through their driving, minimalist intensity and rigid repetition of the text:
“I think the combination of age and a greater coming together is responsible for the speed of the passing of time…”

These works are complimented by pieces by Raven Chacon (“Biyan”), inti figgis-vizueta (“new cosmologies) , and Robert Erickson (“Kryl”).
This concert features special guest performer Johnnie Bankens