Critic’s Choice
This year’s Prototype Festival, the third in what will hopefully continue to be an annual event, is off to a typically strong start with last week’s world premiere of Stefan Weisman’s powerful and affecting opera, The Scarlet Ibis. Now comes the most highly anticipated production of the 2015 Festival, the world premiere of Bora Yoon’s multimedia performance work, Sunken Cathedral.
The music that Yoon wrote and organized for the piece can be heard on her beautiful and stimulating Innova CD, released last year. As a composer, she mixes her own acoustic and electronic music, and original lyrics, with chant, music composed by Hildegard von Bingen, industrial rhythms, sampling, and more. The CD traverses epochs and memories, and is captivating.
On stage, the full work promises an even richer, deeper experience. Yoon will be singing and performing along with traditional Korean dancer and drummer Vong Pak, in a stage design that includes kinetic sculptures made by U-Ram Choe, and featuring an “interaction design” by the excellent and unique electronic media artist R. Luke DuBois. Yoon has stated that her goal is to connect music with sacred architecture in performance—she sings in the Voices of Ascension Choir at the Church of the Ascension—and as contemporary as this production will be, the roots are in the ancient origins of Western classical music. Tickets have been selling quickly, don’t hesitate.
Sunken Cathedral opens at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and continues through January 17. prototypefestival.org
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