Musical Textual

Michael Zwiebach on August 10, 2010

Composer and SFCV contributor Matthew Cmiel and his like-minded collaborator, director/ choreographer Wolfgang Thompson, have put together an evening of music and words that sounds exciting in its mix of different approaches. For the concert, titled "Musical Textual: Where Music and Text Combine," Thompson has put together a choreographic work using Anne Sexton’s poems as a score. Cmiel uses a Muriel Rukeyser poem as a focal point for a ritualistic piece celebrating the common elements in life. Then Cmiel conducts Thompson’s staging of Elliott Carter’s: A Mirror on Which to Dwell: Six Poems of Elizabeth Bishop. Though Carter never expected this chamber piece to be staged, it may help an audience toward an appreciation of a famously difficult work from a famously recondite composer.