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First Person: Seeing America                                                      

                                                                                            
In collaboration with the Metropolitan Musuem of Art photography department, this program features large-screen projected images by some of America’s finest photographers, the poetry and prose of some of America’s greatest writers delivered by two guest actors, and the music of Ensemble Galilei.

From its inception in 1990, Ensemble Galilei has redefined the boundaries of chamber music, created new work, seized opportunities for collaborative relationships and consistently pushed the envelope in a series of innovative projects that explore combinations of images, words, and music.

After taking audiences into space through the lens of the Hubble Space Telescope (A Universe of Dreams) and on journeys of exploration and discovery with pictures from the National Geographic Image Collection (First Person: Stories from the Edge of the World), Ensemble Galilei now looks to home. With images by some of America’s finest photographers, and the poetry and prose of some of America’s greatest writers, the group’s ambitious new project is First Person: Seeing America.

Begin with the strength, diversity and depth of the photography collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art: photographs by Walker Evans, Edward Curtis, Alfred Stieglitz, Ansel Adams, Helen Levitt and others. Take those images and accompany them with the words of Jim Harrison, Dexter Filkins, James Agee, Frederick Douglass, Calamity Jane, and more. The soundtrack is the evocative music of Ensemble Galilei – traditional music from Scotland, Ireland and Sweden; from the Renaissance, Michael Praetorius, and new compositions, featuring fiddles, harp, viola da gamba, percussion, banjo, whistles and oboe.

Transcendent and soulful music winds around the text as high-resolution images are projected on a large screen in the center of the stage. Two actors brilliantly bring people, events and places to life. What people! The haunted faces of rural Americans as they struggle to survive the Dust Bowl, indelible portraits of Native Americans. The events that shaped a nation - the Civil War, the Great Depression, the immigrant experience. And what places – from the sidewalks of New York to the majesty of Yosemite. Great photographers captured it all – hardship, war and despair, and the gritty determination of extraordinary people in a magnificent land. This is what  these extraordinary photographers saw – First Person: Seeing America.

Actors appearing with Ensemble Galilei in First Person: Seeing America --

round the Bend, The Assassination of Richard Nixon, AI. She has appeared on over 50 television shows, including Big Love, Saving

Adrian LaTourelle has appeared onstage from the Mark Taper Forum to Yale Repertory Theater. His television credits include Castle, Last Resort, The Closer, House, NCIS: LA, Boston Legal, Without a Trace, Criminal Minds, Numbers, and Sons of Anarchy. He is the voice of the evil Unalaq on Nickelodeon's Avatar: Legend of Korra.

Mr. LaTourelle alternates with Rob Nagle.

A Universe of Dreams is music, poetry and stories with actress Lily Knight and features projected images from the Hubble Space Telescope. With evocative music inspired by the Hubble images, the performers present the perfect backdrop for works by some of the finest poets in America. Audiences have been swept away by this extraordinary combination of the spoken word and what has been described by critics as "....music that speaks to the heart in ways that transcend mere language." Text from Stanley Kunitz, Jim Harrison, William Shakespeare, and a re-telling of a Navajo Creation Myth are all performed with images from the Hubble that have transformed our understanding of the universe.

"At times, the pairing of poetry and galactic photos was nearly overwhelming, as when a swirling cosmic cloud served as backdrop to Stanley Kunitz's "The Science of the Night": "My touch is on you, who are light-years gone/We are not souls but systems, and we move/In clouds of our unknowing/like great nebulae."

In its best moments, "A Universe of Dreams" made the problems of people -- indeed, our entire planet -- seem incomprehensibly insignificant and the mysteries of the universe unfathomably vast."
South Bend Tribune

Available in December as a winter solstice/holiday event. A Winter's Night features Ensemble Galilei with NPR's Neal Conan as host, narrator and reader. Including text by Ogden Nash, May Sarton, Jim Harrison and others, this seasonal offering presents humorous and heartfelt stories and poems set with music. This concert-length performance is perfect for the holiday season. Ensemble Galilei performs Irish, Scottish, Early and original music on a variety of ancient and modern instruments, including the Celtic harp, viola da gamba, fiddle, recorders, whistles and percussion.


 

Photo at top, right: Walker Evans (American, 1903–1975), Alabama Tenant Farmer, 1936. Gelatin silver print, 23.6 x 18.7 cm (9 5/16 x 7 3/8 in.). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, Jennifer and Joseph Duke Gift, 2000 (2000.329) © Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.