Current Performances
Alice Guy Blaché
Film Score Project
November 6, 2009–January 24, 2010
Commissions by Whitney Live in collaboration with French Institute Alliance Française
Featuring composers Missy Mazzoli, Tamar Muskal, Tender Forever, and Du Yun
In conjunction with Alice Guy Blaché: Cinema Pioneer, Whitney Live, the Museum’s performance program, initiated the Alice Guy Blaché Film Score Project in partnership with the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF). Four vanguard women composers—duYun (Du Yun), Missy Mazzoli, Tamar Muskal, and Tender Forever (Mélanie Valera)—were commissioned to create scores for suites of Guy Blaché’s silent films. These scores were performed as live interactions with the films themselves on September 29 as part of the FIAF’s 2009 Crossing the Line festival. The scores were also recorded in a studio so that they could be presented in accompaniment with film screenings during the run of the exhibition at the Whitney.
About the composers
Du Yun Visit Du Yun’s MySpace page
Du Yun is a New York-based Chinese-American composer who occupies the space between several genres, including contemporary classical, traditional music, and experimental electronica. Her work composing for many well known contemporary ensembles, as well as for herself on amplified/processed Chinese zither (the twenty-one-string zheng), piano, laptop, and voice makes her equally at home in concert halls, clubs, theaters, and other venues.
Missy Mazzoli Visit Missy Mazzoli’s website
As the executive director of the MATA Festival of new music, an organization dedicated to promoting and commissioning works by young composers, composer/performer Missy Mazzoli can be found at the central intersection of the young indie/new music scene. Her unique sound is forged from many influences outside of that world, and Mazzoli’s output reflects this range; she writes for melodicas, out-of-tune guitars, and electronics as well as orchestras, string quartets, and other ensembles.
Tamar Muskal
Tamar Muskal’s music reflects the cultural diversity of her upbringing and education (split between Israel and the United States). Her carefully structured, detailed works are often brushed with musical elements from both places. Recent works include a piece for the Eighth Blackbird Ensemble with video art by Daniel Rozin, a song cycle for string quartet and percussion for Hila Plitmann, and the Lark quartet on poems by David Grossman, and a piece for Jennifer Koh and voice commissioned by the 92Y-New York. Muskal’s piece The Yellow Wind was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2007.
Tender Forever Visit Tender Forever’s MySpace page
Like Alice Guy Blaché, Tender Forever (aka Melanie Valera) was born and began her artistic life in France. She continues to live an intercontinental existence, artistically and otherwise, and moves between the streets of Bordeaux, where she grew up, and her adopted home town of Olympia, Washington. Her tender, delicate songs bring forth hidden connections between these worlds and occupy the musical landscape in which Melanie Valera became Tender Forever (taking as reference points punk rock, experimental electronica, weird visuals, and collaborations with several fellow K Records artists).
