Upcoming event: WAKING IN NEW YORK

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Saturday October 16 at 8 PM
at Music Under Construction 10 East 18th St 3rd Floor
Waking in New York
a musical portrait of Allen Ginsberg
Poems by Allen Ginsberg Music by Elodie Lauten
a Downtown Music Productions/Studio 21 co-production
Tickets: $20 Please make reservation at: 212-388-0202

The performers are: Mark Duer, baritone; Mary Hurlbut, soprano; Laura Wolfe,
mezzo soprano; Mustafa Ahmed, percussion; Mathew Fieldes, double bass; The
Sirius String Quartet with Juliann Klopotic, violin; Elodie Lauten, Steven
Hall and friends.

The reference pitch used is the Platonic Year Tone (as defined by
mathematician Hans Cousto as F at 172.06 Hz)c orresponding to the rotation of
the earth�s axis. See Hans Cousto�s The Cosmic Octave for more details. The
temperaments are polymicrotonal.

The late Allen Ginsberg chose this set of poems on the theme of New York
suggested by Elodie Lauten for a musical setting,during the summer of 96 from
Cosmopolitan Greetings 1986-1992, Collected Poems 1947-1980, and White Shroud
Poems1980-1989. These three books are currently available, published by
Harper Collins. The poems are highly autobiographical.They reveal some of
Allen�s most intimate thoughts - there is a secret in this selection, there
is a legacy, a special message heleft to be disseminated - because New York
was to him like a second skin.

Waking in New York is scored for baritone, soprano and mezzo soprano,
percussion, double bass, string quartet and flute. It is Ginsberg�s flow of
mental associations that trigger rhythm changes and key modulations, but the
mood is translated in the
general pattern arrangement. The melodies follows the text very closely not
only in terms of its own rhythm but in terms of its meaning, which can lead
to some quick and unexpected musical transformations. The first act sets two
major autobiographical poems, May Days 1988 and The Charnel Ground, with the
brief distraction of Lunchtime in between - as in a typical NewYork workday.
The second act sets three short pieces, Jumping the Gun on the Sun, Manhattan
Thirties Flash and �Song� (from Howl), all three quite varied in their feel,
and the title piece, Waking in New York. This particular poem is so rich and
complex that it was set in three separate sections with different tempos and
key signatures. Noteworthy highlights are: areference to the Kennedy
assassination, the New York anthem, �O New York, O now our bird, flying past
glass window chirp,our life together here� , the final hymn of mercy, �that
all beggars be fed, all dying medicined, all loveless tomorrow be loved, well
come and be balm�, and settings of mantras Lauten says she learned from Allen
himself while performing with him. �The buddhist idea of compassion is very
important in relation to Allen'"says Lauten. His entire thinking process is
compassion in itself - he looks at people and feels their struggle. I tried
to stay close to Allen�s train of thought, alternatively introspective and
expansive, sometimes triggering hints of different musical styles, but twice
removed, not as direct quotes. It was like makingfilm music with images
provided by his consciousness - until the melody found its way of taking
over.�

Born in Newark, New Jersey in 1926, the son of the well-known lyric poet and
teacher Louis Ginsberg. As a student at Columbia College in the 1940s, he
began a close friendship with William Burroughs, Neal Cassady, and Jack
Kerouac, and became associated with the Beat movement and the San Francisco
Renaissance in the 1950s. After jobs as a laborer, sailor, and market
researcher, Ginsberg published his first book of poetry, Howl and Other
Poems, in 1956. Howl
overcame censorship trials to become one of the most widely read poems of the
century, translated into more than twenty-two languages, a model for younger
generations of poets from West to East. Crowned Prague May King in 1965, then
expelled by Czech police and simultaneously placed in the FBI�s Dangerous
Security list, Ginsberg has, in recent years, traveled to and taught in the
People�s Republic of China, the Soviet Union, Scandinavia, and Eastern
Europe, receiving Yugoslavia�s Struga Poetry Festival �Golden Wreath� in
1986. A member of the American Institute of Arts and Letters and co-founder
of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute,
the first accredited Buddhist college in the Western world, Ginsberg lived on
New York�s Lower East Side. He died in April 1997 at age 70.

At age 22, Elodie Lauten was chosen to compose and perform the music for an
experimental play at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. Shortly after, she
was an overnight success in New York, where she found a mentor in Allen
Ginsberg who
encouraged her to compose and introduced her to Buddhism. She moved
permanently to New York in 1976. She cut demos for Capitol but eventually
went the independent route with her first release, Orchestre Modern (Rocking
Horse). Then came a time of intense study: meditation with Sri Chinmoy,
Indian music with LaMonte Young and a Masters in composition at NewYork
University. During the 80s she produced a steady stream of independent
releases: Piano Works, Concerto for Piano and Orchestral Memory, The Death
of Don Juan and Blue Rhythms (Cat Collectors/NMDS). She was hailed by the
Village Voice as
�a composer of enchanting music, and one of New York�s most individual voices
of the present generation�. Her multimedia opera The Death of Don Juan
received support from the National Endowment and the Massachusetts Council
for the Arts. In the 90s a number of CDs featuring her varied output � piano
music, synthesizer pieces, chamber music, operas and music for the Trine, the
21-string microtonal lyre she designed, came out on various labels: Tronik
Involutions (O.O. Discs), Variations on the Orange Cycle (Lovely Music),
Music for the Trine (Nonsequitur) and Inscapes from Exile (New Tone). The
Deus Ex Machina Cycle (4Tay) is her latest release.

For further information or to order a copy of the new Elodie Lauten CD The
Deus Ex Machina Cycle (4Tay) please call
Elodie Lauten at 212-388-0202. You may also visit the Elodie Lauten web site
at http://www.echonyc.com/~jhhl/Lauten.