...(IPHIGENIA)
In …(Iphigenia), two of the most visionary and daring musical voices of our time—composer Wayne Shorter and librettist and performer esperanza spalding—have created a modern operatic re-imagining of a powerful ancient story.
Shorter and spalding’s …(Iphigenia), unlike its forebears, is not an adaptation of the Greek myth as much as it is an intervention into myth-making itself, and an intervention into music and opera as we know it.
Classical and jazz forms collide in a full orchestral score that features Shorter’s groundbreaking method of symphonic improvisation. …(Iphigenia) is multiplied, her identity is fractured and shared until the stage is occupied by a chorus of her. …(Iphigenia) stares down the history of opera and makes some demands on its future: No more tragic women singing through suicide and going mad in perfect pitch. No more spectacles of women dead and dying. In the end, Shorter and spalding turn their gaze outward beyond the stage: What will we make, they ask, at this precise moment in our collective present when we are so desperately in need of new visions for the world.
Created by Wayne Shorter and esperanza spalding
Wayne Shorter, Composer
esperanza spalding, Librettist and Performer
Clark Rundell, Conductor
Jeff Tang, Cath Brittan, Mara Isaacs, Producers
Additional text provided by ganavya, Joy Harjo, and Safiya Sinclair
Additional a cappella vocal arrangements by Caroline Shaw
Now Playing
Jazztopad Festival
Wrocław, Poland | November 20
Wayne Shorter
"One of jazz's greatest composers” (New York Times), Wayne Shorter has left an indelible mark on the development of music for the last half-century. He first rose to prominence in the late 1950’s as the primary composer for Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. He next joined the Miles Davis Quintet becoming what Davis referred to as the ensemble’s “intellectual musical catalyst” before co- founding the pioneering group Weather Report. Beginning in 2001, he led his own highly acclaimed, Grammy Award-winning Wayne Shorter Quartet.
His works have been performed by the Chicago Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Lyon Symphony, National Polish Radio Symphonic Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Prague Philharmonic and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Acclaimed artists and ensembles as Renée Fleming and the Imani Winds have also performed his works. He has received commissions from the National, St. Louis, and Nashville Symphony Orchestras, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the La Jolla Music Society. In all, Mr. Shorter has realized over 200 compositions, dozens of which have become modern standards. His many accolades include 11 Grammy Awards and a 2018 Kennedy Center Honor.
esperanza spalding
Born in 1984 in Portland, Oregon, esperanza spalding is an eaabibacliitoti* artist, trained and initiated in the North American (masculine) jazz lineage and tradition. Her work interweaves through various combinations of instrumental music, improvisation, singing, composition, poetry, dance, therapeutic research, storytelling, teaching, regenerative agriculture, urban land & artist-sanctuary custodianship, and growing in love as a daughter, sister, cousin, niece, auntie, great-auntie, friend, while collaboratively decolonizing within and through her hometown community.
She founded and serves as co-director of Prismid Sanctuary, a non-profit that creates and stewards free artist residency, performance, and workshop space in Portland, Oregon (Prismid.org).
With her dance project “Off Brand gOdds” and her therapeutic music incubator “Songwrights Apothecary Lab” she co-leads performance, teaching, workshop, and therapeutic-arts research residencies in collaboration with colleges and arts venues across the Americas and throughout the world. She is a 2024 recipient of the Doris Duke Foundation Artist Award and a 2016 Ford Foundation “Art of Change” Fellow.
*European-African ancestored being influenced by American cultures living in Indigenous Territories of Turtle Island
“Our ...(Iphigenia) has at its core a sense of autonomy – in this adventure of life, you have freedom of choice. All cards are on the table and Iphigenia gets to choose, free of everything. Through her example, we can learn how to take a creative approach to everything, using the power of spontaneous engagement. The overarching sentiment is one of humanistic love, of wanting to re-awaken the dreams of youth, free of the pressures of adulthood.”
esperanza spalding
Contributors
Performance
History
Arts Emerson (World Premiere) (Boston, MA) | The Kennedy Center (Washington, DC) | Cal Performances at UC Berkeley (Berkeley, CA) | The Broad Stage (Los Angeles, CA)