The Southern Exposure New Music Series’ second concert of 25-26 presents scenes from Robert Ashley’s quirky 1980s “TV opera” Perfect Lives, a multi-media show led and with music by USC faculty composers
Greg Stuart and David Kirkland Garner
featuring Ed Madden as the Narrator
Greg Stuart and David Kirkland Garner
From our friends at The USC School of Music —
Experimental composer Robert Ashley’s seminal work Perfect Lives, an “opera” (of sorts!) about bank robbers, cocktail lounges, and reincarnation (sort of!), was first produced for television in 1984. Since then it has gained a cult following and been called “nothing less than the first American opera, written within an American language using various American attention spans …” (Fanfare).
Southern Exposure’s special presentation of three scenes from Perfect Lives is led by USC faculty composer-performers Greg Stuart and David Kirkland Garner, who contribute the music (the sometimes-inscrutable text is by Ashley) and play alongside USC’s New Sounds Quartet. USC English language and literature professor Ed Madden, former poet laureate of Columbia, [& Jasper Magazine Poetry Editor!] is featured as narrator.
This multi-media program also features a video by Greg Stuart, and includes a related visual art display by Columbia painter [& previous featured artist in Jasper Magazine & Jasper Galleries] Mary Ann Haven.
This FREE concert – no tickets or reservations required, general admission seating – is on Friday, November 14 in the USC School of Music Recital Hall, 813 Assembly St., Columbia.
For more information, visit/contact: Southern Exposure New Music Series