“At RiseBoro Youth Center in Brooklyn, the flutist Claire Chase was dangerously close to losing a game of basketball to two young boys,” writes Joshua Barone in Thursday’s (3/1) New York Times. “This lunch break was of a piece with the relationship-building focus of the rehearsals for ‘Pan,’ a genre-defying work for Ms. Chase and mass community participation. The piece, with music by Marcos Balter, tells a version of the mythical story of the demigod Pan… It has its premiere on Friday at the Kitchen in Manhattan [in a staging by Doug] Fitch … whose credits include an ingeniously staged ‘Le Grand Macabre’ with the New York Philharmonic.… ‘Pan’ is the latest installment in Ms. Chase’s four-year-old ‘Density 2036’ [commissioning] project … in the lead-up to the 100th anniversary of Varèse’s 1936 flute masterpiece ‘Density 21.5.’ … The production [uses] Lingua Ignota—a secret language invented by Hildegard of Bingen … for the libretto…. At times, Ms. Chase vocalizes while inhaling, then sounds the flute on the exhale. She does all of this while also acting…. For the children, learning the piece … was like school, ‘only fun,’ said Sean Little, an 11-year-old student at All City Leadership Academy in Brooklyn.”
Posted March 2, 2018
Flutist Claire Chase, pictured, will perform in Marcos Balter’s “Pan” on March 2 at the Kitchen in New York City. Photo by Vincent Tullo / New York Times
