MUSIQA: to perform 'Deep Sky Objects' at Space Center Houston (Photos)

On September 22, 2012, at Hobby Center's Zilkha Hall in Houston, contemporary classical ensemble MUSIQA opened its 2012-2013 season with an extremely innovative program entitled Deep Sky Objects, which included the world premiere of Grawemeyer-award-winning composer Sebastian Currier's Deep Sky Objects, set to poetry by poet Sarah Manguso, Divided and Scattered, a world premiere dance choreographed by Tina Bohnstedt and performed by Houston Ballet II which was set to two movements from Currier's Quartetset, Pierre Jalbert's Secret Alchemy for piano quartet, and Lera Auerbach's violin-piano preludes.

Location: Space Center Houston

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It was a wonderfully entertaining program, with a mixture of many mediums and performing arts, most strikingly obvious in the world premiere presentation of Deep Sky Objects.

The signature piece of the evening, Deep Sky Objects, was a mesmerizingly eclectic intergalactic multimedia love story, which was hypnotically engaging, unpredictable and surprising in its avant-garde synergistic use of classical instruments, vocal poetry, electronic music, and NASA deep space imagery.

Now, on February 13, 2013, MUSIQA is going to perform a special presentation of Deep Sky Objects at Space Center Houston, in a fitting homage to the source of the beautiful space imagery it incorporates, and an ironically perfect setting for its aesthetically creative portrayal of an intergalactic love story.

On September 22, 2012, Examiner.com was able to interview Anthony Brandt, the Artistic Director of MUSIQA backstage at the Hobby Center, and he spoke about the background and mission of the ensemble MUSIQA, and the origins and process of putting together the world premiere piece, Deep Sky Objects. (Interview Video)

MUSIQA - Deep Sky Objects at Space Center Houston Press Release:

MUSIQA PARTNERS WITH SPACE CENTER HOUSTON TO PERFORM DEEP SKY OBJECTS IN TWO PERFORMANCES ON FEBRUARY 13

Houston, Texas...Contemporary classical group Musiqa, winner of the 2013 Chamber Music America/ASCAP Adventurous Programming Award, will partner with Space Center Houston to present two performances of Deep Sky Objects at the Space Center Theater at Space Center Houston on Wednesday, February 13 at 11:30 a.m. and 5:45 p.m. The live performances of the contemporary chamber work will be accompanied by a spectacular series of NASA space images by photographer Colin Legg projected onto the huge theater screen. The performances are open to the public with standard admission to Space Center's theater.

The song cycle Deep Sky Objects, with music composed by Sebastian Currier set to poetry by poet Sarah Manguso, weaves a futuristic tale of a long-distance romance between two lovers separated by a galaxy. With lyrics that reflect intense longing and desire, the piece features soprano soloist Karol Bennett, a piano quintet and electronic music that eerily captures the sounds of deep space. Musiqa presented the world premiere of Deep Sky Objects, which the group commissioned, at its season opening concert at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts' Zilkha Hall in September 2012.

Rare time-lapse photographs of star fields by noted nature photographer Colin Legg enlarged for the IMAX screen will enhance the concert experience.

This commission has been made possible by the Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Program, with generous funding provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Chamber Music America Endowment Fund.

Musiqa's Deep Sky Objects
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Two performances: 11:30 a.m. & 5:45 p.m.
Space Center Houston Theater
1601 NASA Parkway, Houston, TX 77058 (Clear Lake area)
Tickets: General admission to Space Center Houston
Purchase tickets at: www.spacecenter.org
More information at: www.musiqahouston.org and Space Center Houston

About Sebastian Currier

An American composer whose works have been performed at major venues worldwide by acclaimed artists and orchestras, Sebastian Currier is the 2007 recipient of the prestigious Grawemeyer Award. Heralded as "music with a distinctive voice" by The New York Times and as "lyrical, colorful, firmly rooted in tradition, but absolutely new" by the Washington Post, his music has been enthusiastically embraced by violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, for whom he wrote Aftersong, which she performed extensively in the US and Europe. His violin concerto, dedicated to Ms. Mutter, was premiered by the New York Philharmonic in the 2010-2011 season. He has also written works that involve electronic media and video.

Currier has received many prestigious awards, including the Berlin Prize, Rome Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and has held residencies at the MacDowell and Yaddo colonies. He received a D.M.A. from the Juilliard School; and from 1999-2007 he taught at Columbia University.

About Sarah Manguso

An author and poet, Sarah Manguso is the author, most recently, of The Guardians (2012). Her previous book, the memoir The Two Kinds of Decay (2008), was named an Editors' Choice by the New York Times Sunday Book Review and a Best Book of the Year by the Independent (UK), the San Francisco Chronicle, the Telegraph (UK), and Time Out Chicago. Her other books include the story collection Hard to Admit and Harder to Escape (2007), published as one of three volumes in McSweeney's One Hundred and Forty-Five Stories in a Small Box, and the poetry collections Siste Viator (2006) and The Captain Lands in Paradise (2002).

Honors for her writing include a Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, and the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Manguso currently teaches writing at NYU and has taught previously at Columbia, Fairfield, the New School, and the Pratt Institute. Born and raised near Boston, she was educated at Harvard and the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

About Musiqa

Winner of the 2013 Chamber Music America/ASCAP Adventurous Programming Award, Musiqa is a non-profit organization dedicated to the performance of contemporary classical music. Founded in 2002 and led by five composers, Musiqa aims to enrich and inspire the community through programs that integrate contemporary music with other modern art forms. Musiqa celebrates modern creative arts through interdisciplinary concerts that highlight modern music and its connections to literature, film, dance, art, and more. With its innovative collaborations and educational programming, Musiqa strives to make modern repertoire accessible and vital to audiences of all ages and musical backgrounds. Musiqa is funded in part by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and has received its fifth consecutive NEA grant for innovative educational programming.

Major support for Musiqa is provided by the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance, the Brown Foundation, the Aaron Copland Fund, Anne and Albert Chao, the Cullen Trust for the Performing Arts, Aubrey & Sylvia Farb Community Service Fund of Congregation Emanu El, Albert and Ethel Herzstein Charitable Foundation, the Houston Endowment, the Houston Musical Hall Association, R. Stan and Reinnette Marek, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Simmons Foundation, the Strake Foundation, Target, the Texas Commission on the Arts, the Vaughn Foundation and the Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Family Foundation.