About the Artists

Robert Mapplethorpe was born in 1946 in Floral Park, Queens. Of his childhood he said, “I come from suburban America. It was a very safe environment and it was a good place to come from in that it was a good place to leave.”

In 1963, Mapplethorpe enrolled at Pratt Institute in nearby Brooklyn, where he studied drawing, painting, and sculpture. Influenced by artists such as Joseph Cornell and Marcel Duchamp, he also experimented with various materials in mixed-media collages, including images cut from books and magazines. He acquired a Polaroid camera in 1970 and began producing his own photographs to incorporate into the collages, saying he felt “it was more honest.” That same year he and Patti Smith, whom he had met three years earlier, moved into the Chelsea Hotel.

Mapplethorpe quickly found satisfaction taking Polaroid photographs in their own right and indeed few Polaroids actually appear in his mixed-media works. In 1973, the Light Gallery in New York City mounted his first solo gallery exhibition, “Polaroids.” Two years later he acquired a Hasselblad mediumformat camera and began shooting his circle of friends and acquaintances— artists, musicians, socialites, pornographic film stars, and members of the S & M underground. He also worked on commercial projects, creating album cover art for Patti Smith and Television and a series of portraits and party pictures for Interview Magazine.

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Bryce Dessner is one of the most sought-after composers of his generation, with a rapidly expanding catalog of works commissioned by leading ensembles. Known to many as a guitarist with The National, he is also active as a curator – a vital force in the flourishing realm of new creative music.

His orchestral, chamber, and vocal compositions have been commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Metropolitan Museum of Art (for the New York Philharmonic), Kronos Quartet, BAM Next Wave Festival, Barbican Centre, Edinburgh International Festival, Sydney Festival, eighth blackbird, Sō Percussion, New York City Ballet, and many others. He has worked with some of the world’s most creative and respected musicians and visual artists, including Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Johnny Greenwood, Justin Peck, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Matthew Ritchie, among others. His work ‘ Murder Ballads,’ featured on eighth blackbird’s album Filament — an album he also produced and performs on — won the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance. In the fall of 2015 Dessner was tapped, along with Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto, to compose music for Oscar Award-winning director Alejandro Iñárritu’s film, The Revenant, which received a 2016 Golden Globes nomination for Best Original Score and a 2017 Grammy Awards nomination in the Best Score Soundtrack For Visual Media category.

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korde arrington tuttle is a multi-disciplinary artist from Charlotte, NC. His plays include FAMILY'S FIRST FUNERAL (LCT3), CLARITY (Soho Rep.), and GRAVEYARD SHIFT (Goodman Theater, Fall 2018). He is currently head writer on MIXTAPE, a new musical series from Netflix set for premiere in 2019. He is a recipient of New York Stage and Film’s 2018 Founders’ Award, 2018 Falco / Steinman Commission Award at Playwrights Horizons, 2018 Playwrights Initiative Fellowship at the Djerassi Resident Artists Program + was selected as a finalist for both the 2017 Alliance/Kendeda National Playwriting Contest + City Theatre National Award for Short Playwriting Contest. Korde is a playwright-in-residence at Lincoln Center Theater, Resident Artist at Ars Nova, and Middle Voice Theatre Company member at Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre. His debut collection of haiku + photography, falling is the one thing i, was published by Candor Arts, in May 2018. Korde completed his undergraduate studies at UNC Chapel Hill and received his MFA at The New School.

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Kaneza Schaal is a New York City-based theater artist. Her recent work JACK & showed in BAM’s 2018 Next Wave Festival, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Walker Arts Center, REDCAT, On The Boards, Center for Contemporary Art Cincinnati, and Portland Institute for Contemporary Art. Schaal received a 2018 Ford Foundation Art For Justice Bearing Witness award, a 2017 MAP Fund award, and a 2016 Creative Capital Award. Schaal’s GO FORTH premiered at Performance Space 122's COIL Festival. She has worked with The Wooster Group, Elevator Repair Service, Richard Maxwell/New York City Players, Claude Wampler, Jim Findlay, and Dean Moss. She is an Arts-in-Education advocate and has collaborated nationally and internationally with recent teen immigrants and asylum seekers; on intergenerational exchange between elders and teens; and on workshops and talks at Princeton University, Yale University, Emerson College, and her alma mater Wesleyan University.

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Brad Wells is the founder and artistic director of the Grammy Award-winning new music vocal group Roomful of Teeth (praised by WQXR as “the future of vocal music”). Wells has led the ensemble in premieres of over 75 works by many of today’s leading composers including Judd Greenstein, Caroline Shaw, Rinde Eckert, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Missy Mazzoli, Glenn Kotche, Terry Riley, Ted Hearne, and Julia Wolfe, among others. Roomful of Teeth’s debut recording (2012), directed by Wells and praised as “sensually stunning” by the New York Times, included the Pulitzer-winning composition, “Partita for 8 Voices,” written by ensemble member Caroline Shaw. His own compositions—featured on the group’s Grammy-nominated second album, Render (2015) – have been described as “objectively and subjectively gorgeous” (I Care If You Listen). Wells’ permanent sound installation Silo Songs, featuring the earliest vocal music of the Shakers, opened at Hancock Shaker Village in 2018. Since 1999 Wells has been Artist in Residence in Vocal Music at Williams College. He has held conducting and teaching positions at Yale University, Trinity College, and University of California at Berkeley. A champion of Estonian choral music, he has led the US premieres of works by Estonian composers including Raimo Kangro, Jüri-Ruut Kangur, and Lembit Veevo. He has lectured and published articles on the physiology and acoustics of non-classical vocal styles. As a singer he has performed and recorded with such ensembles as Theatre of Voices and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (under Nicholas McGegan and Philip Brett).

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Roomful of Teeth is a GRAMMY-winning vocal project dedicated to mining the expressive potential of the human voice. Through study with masters from singing traditions the world over, the eight-voice ensemble continually expands its vocabulary of singing techniques and, through an ongoing commissioning process, forges a new repertoire without borders.

Founded in 2009 by Brad Wells, the group gathers annually at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) in North Adams, Massachusetts, where they’ve studied Tuvan throat singing, yodeling, belting, Inuit throat singing, Korean P’ansori, Georgian singing, Sardinian cantu a tenore, Hindustani music and Persian classical singing with some of the world’s top performers and teachers. Commissioned composers include Rinde Eckert, Judd Greenstein, Caleb Burhans, Merrill Garbus (of tUnE-yArDs), William Brittelle, Anna Clyne, Fred Hersch, Wally Gunn, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Missy Mazzoli, Michael Harrison, Sam Amidon, and Ted Hearne.

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Alicia Hall Moran (Performer), mezzo-soprano, and critically acclaimed recording artist also composing between genres of opera, art, theatre and jazz. Tapped by celebrated artists including Carrie Mae Weems, Adam Pendleton, Suzanne Bocanegra, Joan Jonas, Charles Gaines and Ragnar Kjartansson, curator Okwui Enwezor, Bill T. Jones/ Arnie Zane Dance Company, musicians Bill Frisell, Charles Lloyd, Jason Moran (her husband), Jessye Norman and diverse writers from Simon Schama to Carl Hancock Rux, her commissions include Two Wings for Carnegie Hall, Work Songs for Venice Biennial, Bleed for Whitney Biennial, Breaking Ice for Prototype Festival/MASS MoCA, Black Wall Street (Tulsa Race Riot of 1921) for River To River Festival, the motown project for The Kitchen, Jazz Goes to the Opera for Opera Southwest and residencies at Yale University, National Sawdust and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and engagements with Oregon Symphony and Louisville Orchestra (Gabriel Kahane’s emergency shelter intake form), Dayton Philharmonic, NSO Pops, Austin Symphony, Chicago Philharmonic, Harlem Chamber Players, Grant Park and others. She made her Broadway debut in the Tony-winning revival The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, starring as Bess on the successful 20-city American tour. “Moran finds the truth of the character in her magnificent voice” (Los Angeles Times). aliciahallmoran.com.

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Isaiah Robinson (Performer), tenor, is a multi-talented musician who was born in Chicago into a musical family of sing-ing parents. As an actor he was featured in Steven Spielberg’s 1991 film Hook, playing the role of Pockets. He has also appeared in several radio and television commercials as a child; most notably, “That’s My Baby” for Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, a Polaroid commercial featuring the come-dian Sinbad as well as advertisements for Kraft, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, JC Penny, Sears and for Eagle Foods. As a vocalist he was primarily trained singing in church by his parents and his siblings which lead to his performing on several jingles and voice-overs for various products and companies. He has performed with several pieces for composer Ted Hearne, includ-ing Katrina Ballads, The Source and Place. Other art-ists include the Barrett Sisters, Darius Brooks, Aretha Franklin, R. Kelly,Pattie LaBelle,Ted Hearne, Rascal Flatts, Joan Collaso, Rene Marie, Kim Stratton, Ted Hearne,Jonita Lattimore, the Brown Sisters, Twinkie Clark Terrell, Kelvin Lenox, Mavis Staples, Janis Siegel, Chaka Khan, Ted Hearne, Yo-Yo Ma, Chance The Rapper, Angela Davis, Candy La Flore, Jeff Morrow, Dennis DeYoung and Ted Hearne . Isaiah is currently a teaching artist for the Lookingglass Theatre, City of Chicago After School Matters Program, Urban Gateways and private students in the Chicago area. He also performs with the Stu Hirsh Orchestra, Silent Theatre, as well as various other aggregations. He was the featured vocalist at the inauguration of Rahm Emanuel as mayor of Chicago. He performs with and facilitates workshops for the Chicago Children’s Choir, and is on staff as a musician/organist and choirmaster at the Life Center C.O.G.I.C. in Chicago, where he has served for more than 16 years.

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ArKtype / Thomas O. Kriegsmann (Producer) is a management and production company specializing in new work development and touring. Over the past 14 years ArKtype’s work has grown to encompass renowned artists from thirty different countries, multiple genres and commercial and non-profit support structures resulting in new work for a variety of spaces. His acclaimed work as producer has been seen worldwide, proudly beginning his work in the production, development and touring of emerging ensembles. His work includes projects with Mikhail Baryshnikov, Peter Brook, Victoria Thiérrée-Chaplin, Yael Farber, Daniel Fish, Annie-B Parson & Paul Lazar, John Cameron Mitchell, Lisa Peterson, Kaneza Schaal, Peter Sellars, Tony Taccone and Julie Taymor. For three seasons he produced the Ringling International Arts Festival in Sarasota, Florida in partnership with Baryshnikov Arts Center, was Director of Programming for Spiegelworld’s South Street Seaport seasons, and most recently served as Director of Programs at New York Live Arts. He recently premiered Sam Green and Kronos Quartet’s A Thousand Thoughts, Byron Au Yong and Aaron Jafferis’ Trigger based in communities nationwide in recognition of the 10th anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre, Kaneza Schaal and Christopher Myers' Cartography (Kennedy Center), Big Dance Theater / Mikhail Baryshnikov’s Man in a Case, the US premiere of Nalaga’at Deaf-Blind Theater’s Not by Bread Alone, and Andrew Ondrejcak & Shara Worden’s You Us We All. Ongoing collaborations include 600 Highwaymen, Bryce Dessner, John Cameron Mitchell, Kaneza Schaal & Christopher Myers, Noche Flamenca, Aaron Landsman, Brent Green, Rude Mechs, Nona Hendryx / Niegel Smith / Carrie Mae Weems, Jessica Blank & Erik Jensen, Sam Green, Nora Chipaumire, Adrien M. & Claire B. and Compagnia T.P.O. More information at arktype.

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Set & Costume Design by Carlos Soto
Lighting Design by Yuki Nakase
Video by Simon Harding
Dramaturgy by Talvin Wilks & Christopher Myers
Production Management by William Knapp
Associate Director Jennifer Harrison Newman
Associate Music Director William Brittelle
Brigid Coleridge, violin
Allyson Stibbards, viola
Julia Yang, cello
Aleksis Martin, clarinet/bass clarinet
Nathan Bamberger, horn
Maxwell Fletcher, guitar
Alexander Garde, percussion
Tennison Watts, percussion
Ariel Mo, piano