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Annual American Composers Update
James Drew
According to Italian opera director, Anatole Vecchi,
composer-playwright Jacopo (James) Drew is creating
yet more new theater forms, with performer/actors combined
with singers, and non-speaking "presences"
(reminiscent of puppet theater) who are cast in productions
that are both comically tragic and ritualistic with
their eerie lighting, drones, and ever present gongs.
Newly revised English and Italian versions of Drew's
The Clown's Evening, are being planned for the
2002-03 season. Drew began creating these forms, first
in the solo setting of the monodrama Cantolobosolo,
featuring Bertram Turetzky as contrabassist, actor,
singer (9 Winds Records CD Tenors, Echoes and Wolves)
and then expanded the concept in his para-opera Survivors
in Pale Light (filmed in the United States by UCSD
Television). Drew continues to compose new music for
children through his Sonorous Circus, performing works
he has composed exclusively for them, most recently,
the Piccolo Sinfonia di Stratti, for acoustic,
digital and non-pitched instruments. A catalog and history
of Drew's works is being compiled and translated by
Germano Rossi in Genoa.
Premieres
In 2001, the staged version of Petite Petersburg
Play had its debut, with Mimi Fulmer and Turetzky,
in San Diego; and Talking Circle was presented
by Resonanz Percussions, in Amsterdam.
Performances
London's West End Players gave 2001 performances of
Surprise Opera II, with soprano Ellie Zoft,
and Moving Spaces, for trombones, gongs, and
voices. Drew conducted Sonorous Circus in a Washington,
DC performance of his Grand Celebration Music
in 2001. Also in 2001, Music of Suspended Colours,
for two pianists, was heard in San Francisco with Drew/George.
The Old Hyde Ensemble played Geospaces, for three
piccolos, gongs, and contrabassoon, in Warwick, UK.
Publications
Violin Concerto; full orchestra and chamber versions;
Piano Trio No. 4 "Divine Lights (In Memory of
Henry and Rosie Kahn)"; From A Howl Whispered;
stage or film work; Talking Circle; voices and
percussion; Mud Vectors; amplified tam tams and
toy instruments; all by Greywolf International Press,
2001.
Further Information
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