Carmina Slovenica in New York City

Carmina Slovenica with Toxic Psalms in New York
January 6-13, 2015

Get tickets for performance here
 

The ultimate experience at the Prototype festival
5 performances in the famous St. Ann’s Warehouse
Presentations at the APAP NYC

 

PROTOTYPE
The music-theatre project Toxic Psalms – The Ultimate Collective Experience will
have its North American premiere in the beginning of January at the New York City
festival Prototype: Opera/Theatre/Now. Prototype is the premier festival of
‘visionary music-theatre’ works and a pioneer in its field. This leading festival of its
kind in the USA is a co-production of Beth Morrison Projects and HERE, two leaders
in the creation and presentation of contemporary, post-classical, multi-disciplinary
opera-theatre and music-theatre work.
Carmina Slovenica will give five performances with Toxic Psalms in the famous St.
Ann’s Warehouse. As an ensemble with original research approaches in music and
scenic art – which expand the field of choral music with boldness, provocativeness
and erudition to reach the most complex creative space of an all-encompassing multiform
work of art – it has already drawn attention of American media and
professionals with the coming guest appearance.
Karmina Šilec was invited to the festival by its art director, the ‘impresario of
alternative opera' – Beth Morrison, also known as the Diaghilev of the 21st
This year Prototype will feature two world premiere co-productions : The
Scarlet Ibis, a dreamy contemporary family opera, and Korean-American artist
Bora Yoon’s multimedia music-theatre work Sunken Cathedral, which takes the
audience on a sonic journey of deep psychological impact; apart from Toxic Psalms
also a performance or rather a theatricalized concept album Kansas City Choir Boy,
century.
Morrison got to know Šilec's work through the International Theatre Institute, in
relation to the program Music Theatre Now, which brought Karmina Šilec an award
for the performance From Time Immemorial in the category Music beyond Opera.
a performance by Timur and the Dime Museum, and two co-production projects with
Opera America’s New Works Forum.

TOXIC PSALMS
The center of the project is the idea of the collective. Chorus/choir manifests the
collective body and as an organism reflects the human desire to merge. It also
manifests social phantasms. The conductor Karmina Šilec describes Toxic Psalms as
a work of an open form, a collection of scenes that pass through spiritual worlds of
the past and present. They are a reflection of the spiritual anguish of today. The
project Toxic Psalms is a voice exploratorium in itself. The sound is being delivered
by the singers in a creative process in which changes of registers, various vocal
techniques from throat singing to bel canto are used. The project introduces a fresh
repertoire, mostly music of our time, and a picture human brutality through it. The life
of a man turns into a drama here and now: men killing for the glory of their psalms.
The author’s poise is not one of an agitator – stirring the feeling that ‘something has to be done’ – it is rigorously contemplative. Despite this ‘detachment’ the violence in
Toxic Psalms is politically stressed and religiously marked.
The performances by Carmina Slovenica will be staged in St. Ann's Warehouse in
New York, which, according to The New York Times, '[produces] tough, raw,
emotion-provoking material…at the vanguard of the avant-garde. '

ST. ANN’S WAREHOUSE in DUMBO
For 34 years, St. Ann’s Warehouse has commissioned, produced, and presented a
unique and eclectic body of innovative theater and concert presentations, from Charlie
Kaufman and the Coen brothers, Lou Reed and John Cals, to The National Theatre of
Scotland. As the centre of the revitalized Brooklyn DUMBO, St. Ann’s Warehouse
represents one of New York City’s most important and compelling live performance
destinations. The current season presents a cycle with the National Theatre of
Scotland, The Wooster Group, Tiger Lillies and Carmina Slovenica.

APAP, January 9-13, 2015, New York City
Alongside the guest appearance in the USA, Carmina Slovenia will participate at the
largest international conference and performing arts market – the APAP (Association
of Performing Arts Presenters). The APAP New York City is held each January and is
probably the world's largest networking forum and marketplace for performing arts.
Numerous lecturers, artists, cultural managers and agents will be visiting showcases
or project presentations – Toxic Psalms among those – lectures, plenary sessions, and
move around the largest multi-storey exhibition space where the production by
Carmina Slovenica will also be promoted.