​Sonic Collaborations

About the Performance

Blue Moon Pale Breath is semi-improvised chamber piece for 5 performers - One Speaker and Four Instrumentalists. It features the poem This Fragile, Healing Land by Twyla Hansen, Nebraska's State Poet. The piece was inspired through interviews with native Nebraskans and their feelings and ideas about the land. The performance explores the Nebraskan landscape and features several Nebraskan artists and thinkers.
 

It was composed by Katie Kroko and Andrew Israelsen who have spent their last two summers in residence at Art Farm in Marquette, NE. While there they immersed themselves in the spirit of Nebraska through Creative Documentary via interviews, compositions, and improvisations.

Kroko and Israelsen are joined for this performance by three native Nebraskans - Jay Kreimer, a former professor at Doane College and Mad Scientist of Music; Adam Zahller, an accomplished and eclectic composer/improviser from Lincoln; and Laura Rubeck, a charismatic cattle-wrangling outdoorswoman with masterful storytelling skills.

Blue Moon Pale Breath is a work in two parts.

The first section features the speaker, Laura Rubeck, reading from scrolls of emotive text fragments from Twyla Hansen's Poem This Fragile, Healing Land. Concurrently, the instrumentalists explore four large graphic scores inspired by topographical maps. These maps describe musical events and the relationship of the performers - whether they are performing on their own or as part of the group. The instrumentalists have access to a variety of instruments, both orchestral and found objects.

In the second section of the piece, the performers depart from their maps and scrolls and begin converging towards a unity. The poem becomes the sole musical material of this section - the piece continues until all the performers are chanting the poem in unison.