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        • Du Yun

        • Angel's Bone (2015)

        • G Schirmer Inc (World)

        Originally commissioned by the Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia. Completion co-commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects and HERE. World Premiere co-produced by Beth Morrison Projects, HERE, and Trinity Wall Street. The world premiere was supported, in part, by public funds from The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

        2017 Pulitzer Prize in Music

        • 1(afl,bfl).1(ca).1.0/0.1.0.1/perc(dmkit)/lu/vn.va.vc (all instruments amplified); prerecorded audio
        • 2(II:pic).2(II:ca).2(II:bcl).2(II:cbn)/2.2.1+btbn.1/perc/str; prerecorded audio
        • Chorus
        • Soprano[=Mezzo-soprano], Baritone, Tenor, Female voice, Male voice
        • 1 hr 27 min
        • Royce Vavrek

        Programme Note

        Composer Note
        Have you ever walked the streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia? The girls wave at you, smile coyly and offer you things in simple English that make you blush. The girls (sometimes a boy or two) look like little animals, bright eyes and jet-black hair. They are half human, half animal — operating on instinct. You may say that you have never been there and that this story sounds too exotic?

        Alternatively, I suppose you live closer to New Jersey or New York? Both areas have a huge trafficking phenomenon. Jackson Heights, Queens has been an epicenter for human trafficking in NYC and New Jersey. The United Nations cites there are between 27 and 30 million modern-day slaves in the world, while the US. State Department cites that 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across borders every year, and UNICEF reports that across the world, there are over one million children entering the sex trade every year.

        But what about the middlemen, the pimps; who are they? Their stories come in many shapes and forms. Why? How? Why do they make the choices they make? Greed? Conviction? Desire? Lust?

        Art does not solve problems. Art, at its best, functions to provoke and suggest. When we choose to have our characters sing, we tackle a phenomenon: we too, can be any of these people — angels or not, middleman or not.

        — Du Yun

        Cast
        MRS. X.E.: Dramatic Soprano or Mezzo-soprano
        MR. X.E.: Baritone. Should have a powerful range, and also sing cabaret-style
        BOY ANGEL: Lyric Tenor. Should have a very wide range; low register can be mostly sung with sound effect
        GIRL ANGEL: Female Voice (preferably with a punk sensibility). Should be a voice that can carry out a punk song, who also coocoos well

        MAN ON TV: Male Voice from the choir
        THE FEMALE CUSTOMER: Mezzo-soprano from the choir
        CUSTOMERS: from the choir
        NEIGHBORS: from the choir
        TV HOST: from the choir

        Mixed Choir: at least 8 singers and a conductor.

        Angel's Bone follows the plight of two angels whose nostalgia for earthly delights has, mysteriously, brought them back to our world. They are found battered and bruised from their long journey by a man and his wife. Mr. and Mrs. X.E. set out to nurse the wounded angels back to health: they bathe them, wash the dirt from their nails…then lock them in a room and decide to exploit these magical beings for wealth and personal gains. Angel's Bone melds chamber music, theatre, punk rock, opera, cabaret, and electronics, exploring the dark effects and motivations behind modern-day slavery and the trafficking industry.

        Media

        Features

        Reviews

        The music makes use of many well-known elements across the history of music in such a way as to alienate and recombine them. For the choir, which mostly comments from the side, Du Yun has composed many phrases that sound like medieval or baroque music ...

        As different as the utilized musical idioms are, the composer combines them self-confidently and tantalisingly cheekily into her very own style, which in this context sounds like the image of a fractured society that only preserves its own tradition in fragments.

        Stefan Schmöe, Wuppertaler Rundschau
        4th September 2023

        ... most touching are the colourfully orchestrated chamber music scenes and the floating, airy choral movements. But then there are also jazzy numbers and strikingly aggressive panic attacks from percussion and brass.

        Rudolf Hermes, Der Opernfreund
        4th September 2023
        Disturbing, powerful and original…
        Anne Midgette, Washington Post
        18th January 2016
        Angel’s Bone is a fully realized vision. Spare yet complex, the work is a wholly original parable on the danger of greed. The work of composer Du Yun ranges across musical genres, from medieval polyphony to punk, in a way that interweaves and juxtaposes the sacred and the profane without ever degrading to pastiche.
        Natalie Axton, Hyperallergic
        11th January 2016
        An appallingly good work…Ms. Du’s music obeys only her own omnivorous tastes and assured dramatic instincts.
        Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, The New York Times
        8th January 2016

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