METROPOLIS ENSEMBLE PRESENTS
IF NOT, WINTER
Thursday, February 20, 2020
1 Rivington Street / 2nd Floor (Buzzer #1) / New York, NY 10011
7:00pm doors / 7:30pm show
Tickets: $20 general / $15 students (free for members, RSVP required)
“Sappho was a musician” writes Anne Carson in the introduction to her work If Not, Winter, a translation of Sappho’s surviving poetry; it was “composed to be sung.” She then goes on to render a brutally beautiful translation of these ancient texts, which exist now only in fragments. Sappho’s words shine through Carson, giving us the sense that we’re hearing something from a great distance, but with the clarity and urgency of someone whispering in our ear.
Jenny Beck’s setting wraps Sappho’s and Carson’s words in a dreamy, immersive soundscape so that we might hear Sappho’s poetry out loud once more, perhaps not as she would have had it, but how it sings to us now: distant, present, lost, reachable, and exquisitely alluring.
This concert is also part of Waypoints, a roving concert series in collaboration with cellist Gabriel Cabezas*.
*2019 Artist Fund Recipient
on the program
Jenny Beck: If Not, Winter*
*Work In Progress Metropolis Ensemble Commission
CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS
