Carduus “Orpheus Fragments”

Carduus “Orpheus Fragments”

With music by Leo Balkovetz, Tyler J. Bouque, Sam de Soto, Holly Druckman, Jenny Herzog, and Jacob Hiser

Six movements about the myth of Orpheus.

In the exquisite corpse game, created and popularized by André Bréton, several players work together to draw an imaginary creature. Each person takes a turn to draw one part of the body. They cannot see the rest of the body, but they can see where the last person left off. The result is an absurd figure, contiguous but made of vastly different parts. Carduus wrote this piece using the exquisite corpse game as a model, with the story of Orpheus serving as the “corpse” that we aimed to stitch back together.

Balkovetz, “Happening”
@1:10 / excerpt from Russel Hoban’s “The Medusa Frequency”

Bouque, “Raumgewinn”
@2:15 / excerpts from Monteverdi’s “Orfeo” and Rilke’s “Sonnets to Orpheus”

De Soto, “é mesmo velha historia”
@4:48 / sampled text from “Orfeo Negro”

Druckman, “Eurydice”
@6:03 / excerpts from Margaret Atwood’s “Variation on the Word Sleep” & H.D.’s “Eurydice”

Herzog, “Little One”
@10:29 / original text by the composer

Hiser, “Cocytus”
@13:05 / dialogue excerpted from “Portrait of a Lady on Fire”

[texts by Russell Hoban and Margaret Atwood are used with permission]

Visual Art by Maya + Rouvelle

Soprano / Catherine Psarakis, Andrea Wozniak
Alto / Wei En Chan, Jenny Herzog
Tenor / Leo Balkovetz, Sam de Soto
Baritone / Tyler J. Bouque, Jacob Hiser
Bass / Elijah Botkin, Chris Talbot

Audio Engineer / Peter Atkinson
Carduus Director / Holly Druckman