Los Angeles-based Jacaranda will perform "The Knee Plays" by composer/songwriter David Byrne, perhaps best known for the tunes from Here Lies Love (and, of course, the Talking Heads).
Byrne wrote "The Knee Plays" as a series of short interludes between larger scenes of Robert Wilson's unfinished opera the CIVIL warS, intended to be performed at the 1984 Olympics.
Jacaranda will present this '80s flashback evening on April 5 at the First Presbyterian Church of Santa Monica, as part of the Los Angeles Philharmonic's citywide "Minimalist Jukebox" festival.
The concert will open with works by Philip Glass: Mad Rush, an elaborate organ piece written for the exiled Dalai Lama's first visit to New York City in 1981 and Glass' suite from the soundtrack to Mishima, the 1985 film directed by Paul Schrader.
Byrne has toured with "The Knee Plays" and also recorded them.
He recently told Jacaranda's Patrick Scott, "Super exciting that this music is being performed again, and in L.A. where it was originally supposed to be presented."
Byrne continued: "The music is a mix of original compositions and brass transcriptions of choral folk music from different places. The little stories that make up most of the narration are personal and for the most part plausible. The brass was intended to cover the noise of the sets being changed and the narration really has nothing directly to do with [the opera's story] though one is free to make connections of one's own."
Actor Fran Kranz will narrate Jacaranda's presentation of "The Knee Plays." Kranz is a rising actor in film, having appeared in Cabin in the Woods and Much Ado About Nothing and television (The Good Wife, Bad Sports). Kranz also appeared in director Mike Nichols' Broadway production of Death of a Salesman with the late Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Jacaranda's April 5 performance will also feature the Lyris Quartet, the Calder Quartet, organist/conductor Mark Alan Hilt, the Jacaranda Chamber Ensemble and the Vintage Collectibles Jazz Band.
The opera the CIVIL warS, with music by Byrne, Glass and others, was originally intended to be performed at the 1984 Olympics Arts Festival in Los Angeles. It was conceived as a meditation on war and the disruption of the moral order.
The vast five-act opera remains unfinished, but the L.A. Phil will perform the "Rome Section" of the opera, with music by Glass, on April 17 and 19. These two concerts are also part of the "Minimalist Jukebox" fest.
For the past 10 years, Jacaranda has presented a series of intimate concert adventures into the realm of new and rarely heard classical music.
More information about this innovative concert series is available at jacarandamusic.org.
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