MY MLK/MARTIN mini-opera called “Black Pilgrims”

here’s the PIECE:

January 16 at Hill Auditorium- University of Michigan/ MLK Day Symposium featuring singers Scott Piper and Daniel Washington;

NICE ARTICLE HERE PLUS ADDRESS FOR THE WEBCAST is mlksymposium.umich.edu

“Black Pilgrims” is a depiction of a fictional dialogue between Malcolm X and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. – set to Hiphop beats and string quartet, with two singers. They discuss their evolving views of Civil Rights, based on their pilgrimages to Mecca and India, respectively. The vocal parts are completely based on transcriptions of interviews with Malcolm and Martin.

Stephen Rush has written 7 operas, over fifty works for Dance, chamber and electronic works, concertos, and three symphonies, performed by the Detroit Symphony and the Warsaw National Symphony. He has authored two books, including Free Jazz, Harmolodics, and Ornette Coleman. He has recordings on Nessa, Pi, Innova, ESP Disk’, Equilibrium, Deep Listening, Centaur, MMC, RogueArts,
Eroica, Summit and Cala Records
(with the New York Philharmonic Chamber Musicians).

He is Professor of Music at the University of Michigan, where he founded the Digital Music Ensemble (DME) which he has directed for 25 years. DME he has worked with Pauline Oliveros, Elliott Sharp, Alvin Lucier and Robert Ashley, and premiered works by John Cage, Philip Glass and
La Monte Young.

Rush has over 35 CDs released, and has performed or recorded with Roscoe Mitchell, Henry Grimes, Eliott Sharp, Steve Swell, Eugene Chadbourne, Peter Kowald and Art Ensemble of Chicago. He also tours and records with his electronic psychedelic improvisation band, “Crystal Mooncone.”

He is also deeply invested in “Installation Art”, with current works in collaboration with Michael Gould and Henry Pollack (Nobel Prize winning physicist) – World Without Ice,
as well as “Jeweled Net of the Vast Invisible” in collaboration with scientists at the Fermi Lab.