Artist Talk: Monochromatic Light (Afterlife) by Park Avenue Armory

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ARTIST TALK: MONOCHROMATIC LIGHT (AFTERLIFE) thursday, september 29, 2022 at 6:00pm featuring a conversation between composer and conductor Tyshawn Sorey, scenic designer Julie Mehretu, choreographer Reggie (Regg Roc) Gray, and bass baritone Davóne Tines moderated by director Peter Sellars

Support for Park Avenue Armory’s artistic season has been generously provided by the Charina Endowment Fund, the Donald A. Pels Charitable Trust, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, the Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, the Howard Gilman Foundation, the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, the Marc Haas Foundation, The Prospect Hill Foundation, The Emma and Georgina Bloomberg Foundation, the Leon Levy Foundation, the May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, Gregory Annenberg Weingarten, GRoW @ Annenberg, the Richenthal Foundation, and the Isak and Rose Weinman Foundation. Additional support has been provided by the Armory’s Artistic Council. Park Avenue Armory is deeply grateful for Senator Charles E. Schumer’s visionary leadership of the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program. Monochromatic Light (Afterlife) is supported in part by public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts. Cover image by Stephanie Berger Photography.

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Thompson Arts Center at Park Avenue Armory | 643 Park Avenue at 67th Street

MEET THE PARTICIPANTS TYSHAWN SOREY

Newark-born composer and multi-instrumentalist Tyshawn Sorey has performed nationally and internationally with his own ensembles, as well as artists such as John Zorn, Vijay Iyer, Roscoe Mitchell, Muhal Richard Abrams, Wadada Leo Smith, Marilyn Crispell, George Lewis, Claire Chase, Steve Lehman, Jason Moran, Evan Parker, Anthony Braxton, and Myra Melford, among others. Sorey has composed works for the LAPhil, ICE, Julia Bullock, PRISM Quartet, JACK Quartet, TAK Ensemble, McGill-McHale Trio, Claire Chase, Davóne Tines, Alarm Will Sound, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Opera Philadelphia, Ensemble Intercontemporain, The Crossing, Soundbox Percussion, and violinist Johnny Gandelsman, among others. Awards include 2017 MacArthur, 2018 United States Artists, 2021 Goddard Lieberson (American Academy of Arts and Letters), and Van Lier fellowships and a 2018 Fromm Foundation commission, with support from the Jerome and Shifting foundations. Sorey has released 15 critically acclaimed recordings that feature his work as a composer, co-composer, improviser, multi-instrumentalist, and conceptualist. He has taught and lectured on composition and improvisation at prestigious universities across the globe and joined the composition faculty at University of Pennsylvania in 2020.

JULIE MEHRETU

Julie Mehretu’s paintings, drawings, and prints engage in a dynamic visual articulation of contemporary experience, depiction of social behavior, and psychogeography of space. Mehretu’s work is informed by a multitude of sources including politics, literature, and music. Her most recent paintings use images from broadcast media depicting conflict, injustice, and social unrest as intellectual and compositional points of departure; though ultimately occluded, they remain a phantom presence in the highly abstracted, gestural completed works. A mid-career survey of Mehretu’s work appeared at LACMA (2019), the High Museum of Art, Georgia (2020), Whitney (2021), and Walker Art Center (2021-22). Awards: MacArthur Award (2005); Berlin Prize: Guna S. Mundheim Fellowship, The American Academy in Berlin (2007); US Department of State Medal of Arts Award (2015). Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 1970, she lives and works in New York and Berlin. MFA honors, RISD; BA, Kalamazoo College; studied at University Cheikh Anta Diop. Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Letters, and American Academy of Design. Global representative: Marian Goodman Gallery.

REGGIE (REGG ROC) GRAY

Brooklyn-born dancer and choreographer Reggie (Regg Roc) Gray is the pioneer of hybrid dance genre flexn: a combination of styles from the local scene such as bone breaking, gliding, get-low, connecting, hat tricks, punchlines, and pauzin, the flex style he revolutionized. Drawing on Brooklyn’s Jamaican street styles bruk up and dancehall, the style was named after TV program Flex N Brooklyn. Gray has won several top dance titles, danced for America’s Best Dance Crew and in music videos for Wayne Wonder, Sean Paul, Nicki Minaj, and others. Gray performs with his award-winning dance crew RingMasters and new dance company The D.R.E.A.M. RING (Dance Rules Everything Around Me). He has choreographed FLEXN and FLEXN Evolution at Park Avenue Armory, touring to the Brisbane, Marseille, Napoli Teatro, and Jacob’s Pillow festivals, as well as Princeton and Dartmouth. Other works include: choreographic contributions to Public Works; The Odyssey at The Public; a residency at National Sawdust; and Flex Ave. Gray is currently developing a new dance production and documentary, Infinite.

DAVÓNE TINES

Heralded as a “singer of immense power and fervor” and “[one] of the most powerful voices of our time” by LA Times, the “immensely gifted American bass baritone Davóne Tines has won acclaim, and advanced the field of classical music” (The New York Times) through his work that blends opera, art song, contemporary classical, spirituals, gospel, and songs of protest, as a means to tell a deeply personal story of perseverance that connects to all of humanity. Called a “next generation leader” by TIME Magazine and recently named Musical America’s 2022 Vocalist of the Year, Tines is a path-breaking artist at the intersection of many histories, cultures, and aesthetics.

PETER SELLARS

Opera, theater, and festival director Peter Sellars has gained international renown for his groundbreaking and transformative interpretations of classics, advocacy of 20th century and contemporary music, and collaborative projects with an extraordinary range of creative and performing artists. He has staged productions at the Dutch National Opera, English National Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Opéra national de Paris, and the Salzburg Festival, among others. Projects include: John Adams’ Nixon in China, The Death of Klinghoffer, El Niño, Doctor Atomic; Kaija Saariaho’s L’Amour de loin, Only the Sound Remains; Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde with video artist Bill Viola; Handel’s Theodora, Hercules; Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito, Idomeneo; Euripides’ The Children of Herakles; Desdemona with novelist Toni Morrison and Malian composer/singer Rokia Traoré. Park Avenue Armory: Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Berliner Philharmoniker, FLEXN, FLEXN Evolution. Awards and positions: MacArthur Fellowship; Erasmus, Gish, and Polar Music prizes; Professor, World Arts and Cultures/Dance, UCLA; Resident Curator, Telluride Film Festival; leader, 1990 and 1993 Los Angeles, 2002 Adelaide Arts, and 2016 Ojai Music festivals; Artistic Director, Vienna’s 2006 New Crowned Hope; member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Thompson Arts Center at Park Avenue Armory | 643 Park Avenue at 67th Street