Sun Dogs

Artists' Statements: 
Rafiq Bhatia 

“In encountering the work of Apichatpong Weerasethakul, I was immediately inspired by its glacial pacing and patience. Though there isn’t much music in Apichatpong’s films, the environmental sound always feels intrinsic, even primary. Above all, there is a sense that Apichatpong creates from a place of deep engagement with his own memory and experience, a practice with which I strongly identify.

During my first viewing of the visuals for On Blue, I heard music in the gestures I saw on screen. Using instruments built from orchestral sound sources (often quiet actions intensely magnified), I set about searching for what I had imagined. Through careful tuning and timbral changes, I tried to let the musical sonorities melt like the sheets on screen. Harmonies unravel, flex, ripple, and relax like their visualized counterparts. Is the state of dreaming always tranquil, or are dreams volatile, like waking life? 

Residing in densely populated NY, I feel the city experiencing the night together in phases, despite the asynchronicity of our REM cycles. Here, as in the jungle where Jenjira sleeps, environmental sounds seep into our experience of the night, guiding us along the journey towards wakefulness. I sought to craft the music so that the birds, frogs, insects, and pulley sounds from Apichatpong’s film would function like members of the ensemble—or even as featured soloists—while Alarm Will Sound’s instruments and Nina Moffitt’s playback voices could conjure the aviaries and ocean waves within Jenjira’s dreaming mind.

When I was presented with this opportunity to rethink this work for the masterful Alarm Will Sound, one of the things that excited me most was the chance to explore the very quietest end of the sonic spectrum. To my ear, the sounds of the softest techniques convey a hyperreal intimacy, vulnerability, and ephemerality, as they are usually rich with evidence of the delicate human action it took to produce them. There is, of course, a relationship between the volume and timbre (or “character”) of a quiet sound, but many instruments playing quietly at once can convey the latter without being as constrained by the former. From the outset, I imagined a full dynamic range of textures that could still feel hushed when they grew immense, where even mountainous accumulations might retain a whispering, ghostly quality at their apex. But as I began to work, I was reminded of what William Blake once wrote: “without contraries there is no progression.” It’s after thunder that I most appreciate the stillness of a soft rain.

I am grateful that this commission provided an occasion to deepen my collaboration with orchestrator Taylor Brook, as well as Nina Moffitt, Chris Pattishall, and Ian Chang, who made invaluable contributions to the electroacoustic component of the piece. Those who listen closely may notice nods to György Ligeti’s Atmosphères and Richard Wagner’s Das Rheingold.

I look forward to experiencing On Blue as it comes to life on stage each night with Alarm Will Sound. As Apichatpong wrote to me in an early correspondence: “Silence is never repeated (Oct 2024).” 

Apichatpong Weerasethakul

“I reflect on the past years as we appear to have slept through the pandemic. Perhaps we are ready to wake up. On Blue was inspired by the moments of awakening, of sunrise. As uncertainty becomes the norm, I treasure this phenomenon's consistency. It's predictable, yet brings tremendous change.

Revisiting Blue was like re-observing and rearranging a dream before dawn. Perhaps our brains are hurriedly retreating their fragmented scenes, storing them in the shadows before consciousness emerges. I saw a blue sheet crumble like a dream. An old cinema set was reanimated for the last performance.  

When first light reaches the eyes, there is a profound sense of clarity. The color blue was giving way to the morning gold. Dream and reality coexist, memories and conditionings fade. Even the word "blue" has lost its meaning. In an instant, we are newborns with no ties to anything.”

Credits

Composed by Rafiq Bhatia
Orchestrated by Taylor Brook

Performer credits (for the music in playback):
Rafiq Bhatia: electronics, programming, sound design (music)
Nina Moffitt: vocals
Chris Pattishall: additional programming and sound design (music)
Ian Chang: additional programming and sound design (music)

Cast: Jenjira Pongpas Widner
Edited and Directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Director of Photography: Chatchai Suban
Camera Assistant and Production: Thanayos Roopkhajorn
Set Director: Natchanon Pribwai
Production Crew: Jirayu Rattanakhanahutanon, Pongsakorn Nanta, Suttipong Nanta
Production Assistant: Somporn Ruensai
Production Manager: Phatsamon Kamnertsiri
Sound Designer: Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr

Digital Laboratory: White Light Studio, Bangkok
Post Production Producer: Supapit
Colorist: Chaitawat Thrisansri
A Production of Kick the Machine Films

Artists’ Statement:  

Mati Diop & Manon Lutanie: “Oumy is 13 and the daughter of Valeria, a close friend of ours. Her dance training, particularly in ballet, is intensive, and we have long wanted to film her. This collaboration with Dev Hynes, commissioned by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was an occasion to finally work with her. The fragile, ambiguous nature of the images evokes archival footage of rehearsals for a school show or film shoot. It also gestures to the transition from childhood to adolescence, wakefulness to trance, sadness to its overcoming—as well as to the interstitial, tenuous nature of such passages. It is also a portrait of Oumy at a specific moment in her life, a moment that is deeply moving to us and that we wanted to capture. The dramatic intensity of Dev’s musical composition, performed by Alarm Will Sound, accompanies Oumy’s movements, mirroring their magnetism, cohesion, and radical autonomy.”

Credits:

Cinematographers, editors: Mati Diop and Manon Lutanie
Light: Joe McCrae
Color grader: Yannig Willmann
Commissioned by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
Louis Langrée, Music Director
Creative producer: Liquid Music
Produced by DIVISION
Executive producer: Laure Salgon
Producer: Alice Wills
Production coordinator: Lina Messeghem
Co-produced by Manon Lutanie
Presented by the CSO and FotoFocus as part of the 2022 FotoFocus Biennial: World Record
Supported by the David C. Herriman Fund of Greater Cincinnati Foundation

Artist’s Statements
Daniel Wohl

“Arooj, Josephine, and I held several brainstorming sessions that led to numerous ideas, some of which we didn’t end up pursuing. During this process it became clear to us that we needed to take into account perspectives and practical considerations that none of us were accustomed to. For example, we had to consider what was possible for film while also taking into account how the music would be performed live by an orchestra. Over the next few months, we each went our own way to come up with material.

One of the most exciting moments for me was when we learned that the demos Arooj and I created were being played by Josephine for the women she was working with in her film. Bringing the music so directly into the filming process really gives it an extra significance for me as a composer. From the feedback that was conveyed to me, the music seemed to resonate deeply with their stories and became part of their conceptualization of the final film.”

Josephine Decker

“Thanks to a commission from Liquid Music and the Cincinnati Orchestra, I had the honor of collaborating with six mothers from Upward Bound House—which supports families transitioning out of homelessness—to create a short film in concert with musicians Daniel Wohl and Arooj Aftab.

The six mothers I got to work with—Michaela Slaninova, Tracy Taylor, Gisselle Martinez, Estephania Camacho, Amy Bryan, and Christal Allen—responded to musical prompts, improvised, and shared stories from their own journeys as parents to create the backbone of the script. Our process involved improvised dancing on jungle gyms, free writing, drawing, and sharing intimate challenges from our lives as parents.  

The tale we decided to tell together is this one:
A mother finds out that the money she’s paid for rent has been stolen by the person she’s subletting from. Forced to leave her apartment, she works to hold down a job and pay for childcare while living in her car. Our “mother” is played by four mothers—Amy, Michaela, Tracy, and Gisselle—in a poetic and dance-inspired film, set to music by Daniel Wohl and Arooj Aftab.

Working on this film was one of the creatively fulfilling projects I’ve ever taken on. I feel endlessly grateful to my collaborators and to the leadership at Upward Bound House.

To create a film work in dialogue with musicians—and with this level of creative freedom—is such a gift. I grew up as a musician myself, and music has always been foundational to all of my filmmaking. To get to give the music such a forefronted role in the process was a delight. Also, the piece that Arooj and Daniel created is soulful and spectacular—and inspired all of us on the film team as we moved into the work. Centering the piece on mothers and on the female voice was grounding and felt like a celebration despite the challenging circumstances we were illuminating in the piece.” 

Credits

Commissioned by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
Louis Langrée, Music Director
Produced by Liquid Music
Presented by the CSO and FotoFocus as part of the 2022 FotoFocus Biennial: World Record
Supported by the David C. Herriman Fund of Greater Cincinnati Foundation
Directed by Josephine Decker
Music written by Arooj Aftab and Daniel Wohl
Produced by Valerie Steinberg
Co-Producer: Thomas Bond
Executive Producer: Luna Zhang
Written by Josephine Decker, Amy Bryan, Christal Allen, Tracy Taylor, Michaela Slaninova, Estephania Camacho, and Gisselle Martinez
Created in collaboration with Upward Bound House, Los Angeles

Featuring:
Amy Bryan and Shawntay Brown
Michaela Slaninova and Kira Berousek
Gisselle Martinez and Sebastian Gonzalez
Tracy Taylor and Thor Wilridge
Andy Gilchrist and Sierra Santana

Director of Photography: Amina Zadeh
Production Designer: Ashley Fenton
Costume Designer: Jordan Butcher
Editor: Harry Cepka

1st Assistant Director: Art Brainard
2nd Assistant Director: Nicholas Sherman
Set Decorator: Laura Santoyo
Set Dresser: Betsy Holt
Hair and Make-Up Artist: Lizzy Romero
Production Sound Mixer: Sandra Joen Pérez-Tejeda
Assistant Camera: Samahra Little, Corey Cave
Steadicam Operator: Wes Turner
Gaffer: Yannis Schmid
Key Grip: Samir Golshan
Swing: Gustavo Perez, Pedro Penteado
Production Coordinator: Karley Ferlic
Key Production Assistant: Kelsey Lorensen
Production Assistants: Lucien Muller, Sydney Ribot, Mike Lars White, Andrew Anzora
Childcare: Milagros Molina, Andy Gilchrist, Jenna Bruce
Workshop Leaders: Josephine Decker and Audrey Evans

Picture Finishing by: Company 3
Colorist: Jenny Montgomery
Finishing Producer: Nick Krasnic
Steadicam Shot Concept workshopped in collaboration with Pig Iron Theatre Company

Special Thanks: 
Christine Mirasy-Glasco, Upward Bound House CEO and President
Laura Anderson, Upward Bound House
Nancy Morales, Upward Bound House
Ariana Herrera, Upward Bound House
Sister Kathleen Callaway and Ramona Convent Secondary School
The Corner Shop
Luky’s Hardware
Hudson Spider

Ensemble Members

Alarm Will Sound is a 20-member band committed to innovative performances and recordings of today’s music. They have established a reputation for performing demanding music with energetic skill. Their performances have been described as “equal parts exuberance, nonchalance, and virtuosity” by the Financial Times of London and as “a triumph of ensemble playing” by the San Francisco Chronicle. The New York Times says that Alarm Will Sound is “one of the most vital and original ensembles on the American music scene.”

With classical skill and unlimited curiosity, Alarm Will Sound takes on music from a wide variety of styles. Its repertoire ranges from European to American works, from the arch-modernist to the pop-influenced. Alarm Will Sound has been associated since its inception with composers at the forefront of contemporary music, premiering pieces by Steve Reich, Meredith Monk, Tyshawn Sorey, David Lang, John Adams, Mary Kouyoumdjian, John Luther Adams, Marcos Balter, and Augusta Read Thomas, among others. The group itself includes many composer-performers, which allows for an unusual degree of insight into the creation and performance of new work.

Alarm Will Sound collaborates with artists who work beyond the bounds of classical music. Alarm System, and the Matt Marks Impact Fund are initiatives that have created cross-genre music with electronica artists Eartheater, Jlin, King Britt, and Rashad Becker; jazz composer-performer Dave Douglas; multimedia artists Mira Calix, Bakudi Scream, and Damon Davis; soundtrack composers Brian Reitzell and JG Thirlwell; producer Valgeir Sigurðsson, and singer-songwriter Alyssa Pyper. 

Alarm Will Sound is the resident ensemble at the Mizzou International Composers Festival. Held each July at the University of Missouri in Columbia, the festival features eight world premieres by early-career composers. During the weeklong festival, these composers work closely with Alarm Will Sound and two established guest composers to perform and record their new work.

Alarm Will Sound may be heard on eighteen recordings, including For George Lewis | Autoshchediasms, their most recent release featuring music of Tyshawn Sorey; Omnisphere, with jazz trio Medeski Martin & Wood; a collaboration with Peabody Award-winning podcast Meet the Composer titled Splitting Adams; and the premiere recording of Steve Reich’s Radio Rewrite. Their genre-bending, critically acclaimed Acoustica features live-performance arrangements of music by electronica guru Aphex Twin. This unique project taps the diverse talents within the group, from the many composers who made arrangements of the original tracks, to the experimental approaches developed by the performers.  

In 2016, Alarm Will Sound in a co-production with Opera Theatre of St. Louis, presented the world premiere of the staged version of Donnacha Dennehy’s The Hunger at the BAM Next Wave Festival and the Touhill Performing Arts Center. Featuring Iarla O’Lionárd (traditional Irish singer) and Katherine Manley (soprano) with direction by Tom Creed, The Hunger is punctuated by video commentary and profound early recordings of traditional Irish folk ballads mined from various archives including those of Alan Lomax.

In 2013-14, Alarm Will Sound served as artists-in-residence at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. During that season, the ensemble presented four large ensemble performances at the Met, including two site-specific productions staged in museum galleries (Twinned, a collaboration with Dance Heginbotham and I Was Here I Was I, a new theatrical work by Kate Soper and Nigel Maister), as well as several smaller events in collaboration with the Museum’s educational programs.  

In 2011, at Carnegie Hall, the group presented 1969, a multimedia event that uses music, images, text, and staging to tell the compelling story of great musicians—John Lennon, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Paul McCartney, Luciano Berio, Yoko Ono, and Leonard Bernstein—striving for a new music and a new world amidst the turmoil of the late 1960s. 1969’s unconventional approach combining music, history, and ideas has been critically praised by The New York Times as “... a swirling, heady meditation on the intersection of experimental and commercial spheres, and of social and aesthetic agendas.”

Alarm Will Sound has been presented by Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Miller Theatre, Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Bang on a Can’s Long Play Festival, Disney Hall, Kimmel Center, Library of Congress, Annenberg Center, the Clarice, CAP UCLA, Caramoor, and the Warhol Museum. International tours include the Beijing Modern Festival, the Holland Festival, Sacrum Profanum, Moscow’s Art November, St. Petersburg’s Pro Arte Festival, and the Barbican.

The members of the ensemble have also demonstrated our commitment to the education of young performers and composers through residency performances and activities at Princeton University, the University of Michigan, University of Maryland, Shenandoah University, the Community Music School of Webster University, Cleveland State University, University of Colorado at Boulder, University of Missouri, Eastman School of Music, Dickinson College, Duke University, the Manhattan School of Music, Harvard University, New York University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Alarm Will Sound Staff

Gavin Chuck, executive director
Peter Ferry, assistant director of artistic planning
Jason Varvaro, production manager
Annie Toth, general manager
Tracy Mendez, development manager
Michael Clayville, director of marketing
Bill Kalinkos, librarian
Uday Singh, program coordinator

For more information and to join the mailing list, visit Alarm Will Sound’s website at www.alarmwillsound.com.

Alan Pierson has been praised as "a dynamic conductor and musical visionary" by The New York Times, a "conductor of monstrous skill" by Newsday, "gifted and electrifying" by the Boston Globe, and "one of the most exciting figures in new music today" by Fanfare. In addition to his work as artistic director of Alarm Will Sound, he has served as artistic director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and guest conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, L.A. Opera, Nationaltheater Mannheim, the London Sinfonietta, the Steve Reich Ensemble, the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the New World Symphony, and the Silk Road Project, among others. He is co-director of the Northwestern University Contemporary Music Ensemble, and has been a visiting faculty conductor at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, the Eastman School of Music, and at the Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity. 

Passionate about using storytelling to bring listeners inside of contemporary music, he has led the creation of innovative musical experiences, like Alarm Will Sound's 1969 and Soundbites video series, and the Brooklyn Philharmonic's Brooklyn Village project. Pierson has collaborated with major composers and performers, including Yo Yo Ma, Steve Reich, Dawn Upshaw, Osvaldo Golijov, John Adams, John Luther Adams, Augusta Read Thomas, David Lang, Michael Gordon, La Monte Young, and choreographers Mark Morris, Christopher Wheeldon, Akram Khan, and Elliot Feld. Pierson received bachelor degrees in physics and music from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a doctorate in conducting from the Eastman School of Music. He has recorded for Nonesuch Records, Cantaloupe Music, Sony Classical, Oehms Classics, and Sweetspot DVD.

Born in Paris and now residing in Los Angeles, Daniel Wohl is a composer who blends electronics with acoustic instrumentation to often "surprising and provocative effect" (NPR). His multifaceted output ranges from intimate music for soloists to immersive electronic pieces, music for film and television, chamber ensembles, and works for large orchestras. He has received critical praise as one of his generation’s "imaginative, skillful creators" (The New York Times) making music that is "beautiful … original" (Pitchfork). 

Performances of his electroacoustic concert music have been held at the Broad Museum, MASS MoCA, the Hollywood Bowl, Carnegie Hall, The Barbican, Sadler's Wells, and MoMA PS1, by orchestras such as the Cincinnati Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Alarm Will Sound, The London Contemporary Orchestra, ensembles from the San Francisco Symphony and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, and So Percussion, among others. An enthusiastic collaborator, Wohl has worked on projects with artists such as Jóhann Jóhannsson, Son Lux, Arooj Aftab, and Laurel Halo. He recently composed the music for the Luna Luna exhibit, a showcase of the world’s first art amusement park, featuring artworks by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Salvidor Dali, David Hockney, and others.

His passion for composing for film and television has led him to work on a number of media projects with directors such as Patty Jenkins and Morgan Neville. His most recent album Etat was released on Nonesuch and New Amsterdam Records in 2019. A graduate of the doctoral program at the Yale School of Music, Wohl studied primarily with composer David Lang.

Pianist, composer, and organist Orfe has earned critical acclaim for his interpretations of five centuries of keyboard repertoire ranging from the canonic to the arcane. He is the Organist at First United Methodist Church in Peoria, IL, where he also served for eighteen months as Interim Director of Traditional Music. Since 2019, he has acted as keyboardist for Present Music in Milwaukee, WI, where in 2021, he edited and premiered the organ part central to Raven Chacon’s Voiceless Mass, which won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Music. As the core pianist and a founding member of critically acclaimed new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound, Orfe has performed in Carnegie Hall, Miller Theatre, Roulette, the World Financial Center, and Symphony Space in NY; Disney Hall, Mondavi Hall, and Hertz Hall in CA.; the Library of Congress in Washington, DC; and music series and festivals across the U.S., Europe, and Asia including Beijing, Nanning, Seoul, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Krakow, Amsterdam, Berlin, Bremen, Bolzano, Cork, Hamburg, London, Lima, San Jose, Quito, and Saõ Paolo. Orfe has recorded on the Albany, Canteloupe, Nonesuch, Kairos, and Parma labels.

As a composer, Orfe has fulfilled commissions from choirs, orchestras, chamber ensembles, and organizations including Illinois Wesleyan University, Choral Arts Ensemble, Two Rivers Chorale, Duo Montagnard, Music Institute of Chicago, Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra, and the Diocese of Peoria, IL. Ensembles that have performed his music include the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Spokane Symphony Orchestra, Mannes American Composers Ensemble, John Alexander Singers, Mizzou University Singers, Illinois State University Concert Choir, Bethel University Choir, UIUC combined Glee Clubs, new music ensembles at the North Carolina School of the Arts, Southern Illinois University, and Bowling Green State University. His work has earned praise from The New York Times, LAWeekly, San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, Die Welt, and icareifyoulisten among other media. He is a winner of a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, a Tanglewood Music Center Fellowship, the William Schuman and Boudleaux Bryant Prizes from BMI, fifteen Standard Awards and the Morton Gould Award from ASCAP, the Heckscher Prize from Ithaca College, the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and first prizes in national competitions held by NACUSA, the Pacific Chorale, Choral Arts Ensemble, Eastern Trombone Workshop, and New Music Delaware. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music and a Bachelor of Arts in Religion from the University of Rochester, as well as Master of Music, Master of Musical Arts, and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from the Yale School of Music.  His music appears on the Centaur, Delos, and Nonesuch labels.

Over the last few years, Grammy award winning artist, Arooj Aftab, has emerged as one of the most innovative composers and vocalists of our time, a true visionary whose architectural compositions unfurl into moving reflections on love and loss. Her work mellifluously blends a wide array of genres, from jazz to minimalism to Pakistani semi-classical, and she sings with such intentionality and focus that it sounds like she is chiseling every word out of marble.

Her incredible work has resonated with listeners across the globe: She has been named one of NPR’s Top 100 composers, and has been featured on several best concerts lists, including one by The New York Times. Her 2021 Vulture Prince album was met with critical acclaim from The Guardian, Time Magazine, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, The Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times. Aftab has performed at major international music festivals including Coachella, Glastonbury, Primavera Sound Barcelona, Roskilde Festival, and Montreal Jazz Festival. She has also performed at Performance Art Centers such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Lincoln Center for Performing Arts, and The Broad. Aftab is a 2023 United States Artists Fellow and a recipient of the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Music.

Aftab is inspired by the poetics of the ordinary—the grandeur of a centuries old tree, the glow of the moon, the yearning floating in the air at dusk, the drama of an incomplete love affair—these inspirations are the mirror to her music, as she witnesses the world. The emotions Aftab conveys feel intimate and familiar, like they were pulled from a forgotten dream. But her musical skill is so precise and her voice is so singular that the music sounds like nothing that has ever come before it.

Josephine Decker is a filmmaker committed to collaboration, poetry, play, cinema, and the new genres and personal transformations that emerge from their mixing. Her work focuses on women’s interiority and sexuality. 

She is currently adapting a novel by Max Porter into a body horror feature film Dead Papa Toothwort with BBC and The Bureau. Her project Swamplandia! is based on the best-selling book by Karen Russell and in collaboration with the Miccosukee Nation is set up with FilmNation and will shoot in January in FL. She’s also adapting a short story by Kelly Link with Tango.  

Her feature The Sky is Everywhere (A24/Apple TV Plus, adapted from Jandy Nelson's YA novel) came out Valentine's Day 2022 and was a New York Times Critic’s Pick. Her previous feature film Shirley (Neon/Hulu), starring Elisabeth Moss and Odessa Young, won Sundance 2020’s U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Auteur Filmmaking and centers around two women whose subtly erotic friendship is both liberating and destructive.  

Decker’s work tends to bend the space between imagination and reality. Her feature film Madeline’s Madeline (Oscilloscope / Hulu / Showtime) follows an unstable teenager as she is seduced into a large role in a theater company.  The film’s visceral cinematography, editing, and sound design thrust the audience into the ever-shifting first-person perspective of her main character Madeline. Madeline’s Madeline, scripted through a devised process with ten actors, played Sundance, Berlinale, and scores of festivals worldwide, was hailed as a “mind-scrambling masterpiece” and was nominated for Best Picture at IFP’s Gotham Awards and for two Independent Spirit Awards. Said to be ushering in a “new grammar of narrative” by The New Yorker, Decker premiered her first two narrative features at the Berlinale Forum 2014 to critical acclaim. 

Decker also explores collaborative storytelling via TV directing, documentary making, performance art, accordion-playing, acting, teaching at places like CalArts and Princeton University, and leading artist residencies with the School of Making Thinking.  

Since 2022, she has been making a documentary in collaboration with teen mothers in Dallas, TX. Dallas offers limited access to contraception and health insurance, housing assistance that has been priced out by Dallas’ booming real estate market, and has the highest repeat teen pregnancy rate in the country. The teen mothers Decker works with improvise, write, and act in short films that create the backbone of the doc.

The New York Times proclaims guitarist, composer, and producer “Rafiq Bhatia is writing his own musical language,” heralding him as “one of the most intriguing figures in music today.” A guitarist, composer, producer, and sound artist “who refuses to be pinned to one genre, culture or instrument,” Bhatia “treats his guitar, synthesizers, drum machines and electronic effects as architectural elements,” the Times writes. “Sound becomes contour; music becomes something to step into rather than merely follow.”

Bhatia’s 2018 album Breaking English finds a visceral common ground between ecstatic avant-jazz, mournful soul, tangled strings and building-shaking electronics, resulting in a "stunningly focused new sound" (Chicago Tribune) that resembles “science fiction on a blockbuster scale” (Washington Post). 2020’s Standards Vol. 1 (EP) renders repertoire from the American songbook “completely deconstructed, infused with brand new textures and electronic effects, dreamlike and beautiful” (BBC).

More recently, the painstaking sound design of Bhatia’s own projects has inspired other artists to recruit him as a producer and mixing engineer. 2020 saw the release of pianist Chris Pattishall’s debut album, Zodiac, featuring the music of Mary Lou Williams with production and mixing by Bhatia. The New York Times hailed it as “a startling achievement,” while The Wire writes, “the production successfully achieves an impression of solid forms melting and reconfiguring, ethereal transitions precipitating dramatic and frequent shifts of mood and manner … an audible space opening up between the routine and the magical.”

Since 2014, Bhatia has been a member of the band Son Lux. Together, they have released three albums and numerous EPs, and given over 500 performances worldwide. Most recently, they scored the Academy Award-winning film Everything Everywhere All At Once for A24 which was nominated for Best Original Score at the Oscars and BAFTAs, and included collaborations with David Byrne, Mitski, Moses Sumney, Randy Newman, and more.

Bhatia has presented his music live in dozens of performances across three continents. He has been commissioned by the Kronos Quartet, Cincinnati Symphony, Walker Art Center, Liquid Music, Newfields, The Jazz Gallery, Toledo Museum of Art, and more. Bhatia has collaborated with Arooj Aftab, Michael Cina, Dave Douglas, Vijay Iyer, Okkyung Lee, Billy Hart, Helado Negro, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Moses Sumney, and many others.

Bhatia is a Jerome Foundation Composer/Sound Artist Fellow and adjunct faculty of the New School’s Performer-Composer Master of Music program. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul is recognized as one of the most original voices in contemporary cinema. His previous seven feature films, short films, installations, and his recent live performance have won him widespread international recognition and numerous awards, including the Cannes Jury Prize in 2021 for Memoria, his first film shot outside of Thailand, featuring Tilda Swinton. He also won Cannes Palme d’Or in 2010 with Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. His Tropical Malady won the Cannes Competition Jury Prize in 2004 and Blissfully Yours won the Cannes Un Certain Regard Award in 2002. Syndromes and a Century (2006) was recognised as one of the best films of the last decade in several 2010 polls. Mysterious Object at Noon (2000), his first feature, has been restored by Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Foundation.

Born in Bangkok, Weerasethakul grew up in Khon Kaen in north-eastern Thailand. He began making films and video shorts in 1994 and completed his first feature in 2000. He has also mounted exhibitions and installations in many countries since 1998 and is now recognized as a major international visual artist. 

His art prizes include the Sharjah Biennial Prize (2013), the prestigious Yanghyun Art Prize (2014) in South Korea, and the Artes Mundi Award (2019). Lyrical and often fascinatingly mysterious, his film works are non-linear, dealing with memory and in subtle ways invoking personal politics and social issues. Working independently of the Thai commercial film industry, he devotes himself to promoting experimental and independent filmmaking through his company Kick the Machine Films, founded in 1999, which also produces all his films. His installations have included the multi-screen project Primitive (2009), acquired for major museum collections (including Tate Modern and Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris), a major installation for the 2012 Kassel Documenta and most recently the film installations Fireworks (Archive) (2014), Invisibility (2016), Constellations (2018), A Minor History (2021, 2022), and Moving Pictures (2023). Weerasethakul lives and works in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Raised in England, Devonté Hynes started in the punk band Test Icicles before releasing two orchestral acoustic pop records as Lightspeed Champion. Since 2011, Hynes has released four solo albums under the name Blood Orange – Coastal Grooves, Cupid Deluxe, Freetown Sound, and Negro Swan, as well as 2019’s Angel’s Pulse mixtape and his most recent EP, Four Songs in 2022, all of which have been met with critical acclaim. His work has explored the complexities and ambiguities of 21st century identity, delving into memory, trauma, depression, and anxiety, as well as the triumphs of vulnerable communities, including people of color and queer and trans communities, and where they intersect.

In addition to his solo work, Hynes has collaborated with pop music superstars including Mariah Carey, A$AP Rocky, Solange, Blondie, Paul McCartney, Tame Impala, Robyn, and Sky Ferreira. Hynes's film and television credits include the scores for Melina Matsoukas’ Queen and Slim, Gia Coppola's Palo Alto, Luca Guadagnino’s We Are Who We Are, Rebecca Hall’s Passing, and Rodrigo Garcia's In Treatment. He also recently scored the music for the Broadway production Job and is a frequent collaborator with the fashion house Marni.

As a performer and scholar of contemporary music, Hynes has long specialized in the work of Julius Eastman, performing the composer's work internationally and recently featured on Wild Up's Grammy-nominated anthology of the composer's works. Hynes also provided the forward to the French edition of Gay Guerrilla, a collection of essays about Eastman's life and music. Hynes has performed the music of Philip Glass alongside the composer, and was recently featured in a ten-part BBC series Composed, about the breadth of classical music.

Hynes's symphonic and instrumental music has been performed and commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra, LA Philharmonic, and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, among others, and championed by artists including Seth Parker Woods, Adam Tendler, and Third Coast Percussion, who in 2020 were nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Chamber Music or Small Ensemble Performance for their recording of Hynes's work, Fields. Hynes's piano concerto, Happenings, saw its premiere at New York’s Little Island Festival in 2021, and has been featured, along with his cello concerto, Origin, multiple chamber works, and his symphony Naked Blue, in a series of Selected Classical Works programs, which have appeared at Sydney Opera House, Los Angeles's Ford Theatre, London's Barbican Centre, and New York's Brooklyn Academy of America.

Mati Diop is a French-Senegalese filmmaker born in Paris in 1982. Since her start as a visual artist in the early 2000s and her leading role in Claire Denis’ 35 Shots of Rum (2008), she has built an eclectic body of work which includes her award-winning short films Atlantiques (2009), Big in Vietnam (2010), Snow Canon (2011), A Thousand Suns (2013), and In my room (2020).

With her first feature film Atlantics (2019), winner of the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, she has established herself as one of the leading figures of international auteur cinema and a new wave in African and diasporic cinema. Her nomadic, romanesque and political films challenge the boundaries between genres and formats like a reflection of her mixed identity. Selected in the official competition at the 74th Berlinale, Dahomey (2024), her second feature film shot in Benin about the restitution of royal treasures looted during French colonization, pursues her artistic commitment on the African continent.

Manon Lutanie is a publisher and filmmaker based in Paris. Her short films have screened internationally at e-flux, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, ICA London, FIAC Hors les murs, Documenta Madrid, FIDMarseille, Mucem, Indie Lisboa, and elsewhere. In 2009, she founded the independent press Éditions Lutanie, through which she has published books by Zoë Lund, Rene Ricard, Walter De Maria, Michael Heizer, Marianne Vitale, and more. She is a member of P.A.I.N.–a non-profit acting to end the overdose epidemic and the stigma of addiction.

Liquid Music Staff

Kate Nordstrum, artistic director
Chris Mode, associate producer
Katie Hare, communications manager

About Liquid Music 

Liquid Music is a leading producer of special projects in contemporary music, an internationally recognized laboratory for artists from across genre and disciplinary spectrums. This creative institution nurtures and realizes bold ideas from performers and composers, inspiring audiences to discover, learn and be transformed.

Founded at The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in 2012, Liquid Music became independent in 2020, owned and operated by artistic director Kate Nordstrum who has been widely praised for her programmatic vision, panoramic tastes and “storied matchmaking” (Minnesota Star Tribune). Through Liquid Music, Nordstrum has built a boundary-defying platform for collaboration and earned her reputation as “the most adventurous music curator in town” (MinnPost), “a presenter of rare initiative” (Star Tribune), and “Twin Cities’ curatorial powerhouse with international pull” (Minnesota Public Radio).

Rise, Again, Naked Blue, and On Blue were commissioned by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and FotoFocus as part of the 2022 FotoFocus Biennial. Support for new arrangements was made possible by Tim and Calli Sullivan, Dr. Thomas von Sternberg, and Eve Parker. Prelude for an Old Friend was commissioned by Northrop as part of the 2024 Liquid Music | Northrop Series.

Alarm Will Sound gratefully acknowledges our individual donors and the following foundations for their support: Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, Amphion Foundation, BMI Foundation, Cheswatyr Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, and the Sinquefield Charitable Trust.

Additional Support provided by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; and the National Endowment for the Arts.

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

Supported by the Anna M Heilmaier Foundation.

The Northrop Advisory Board

The Northrop Advisory Board is committed to the growth and awareness of Northrop’s mission, vision, and the continued future of presenting world-class dance and music in our community. If you would like more information about the advisory board and its work, please contact Cynthia Betz, Director of Development, at 612-626-7554 or betzx011@umn.edu.

Thank you for supporting Northrop!

Making Legendary Performances Possible!

At Northrop, we believe in connecting great artists and ideas with our community and to a new generation of audiences. Your gift helps make memorable arts experiences possible by supporting extraordinary performances and new arts commissions, and helping ensure accessibility to everyone through live-streamed programming, outreach to diverse communities and subsidized student tickets. Our Friends are at the center of Northrop’s biggest ideas and brightest moments on stage.

Become a Friend of Northrop today! 
Donate online at northrop.umn.edu/support-northrop

Ways to Give:

• Annual Giving, a yearly gift amount of your choice.
• Monthly Giving, choose a recurring gift amount that works for you.
• Stock Gifts, Northrop accepts charitable gifts of stock.
• Planned Giving, consider a legacy gift by including Northrop in your will or trust, or by designating Northrop as a beneficiary of a retirement plan or life insurance policy.
• Matching Gifts, double your gift through your company’s matching gift program.

To learn more about supporting Northrop please contact:
Cynthia Betz
betzx011@umn.edu or 612-626-7554 

Friends of Northrop

A special thank you to our patrons whose generous support makes Northrop's transformative arts experiences possible. Make your mark on Northrop's future by becoming a Friend today, learn more by visiting northrop.umn.edu/support-northrop.

We gratefully acknowledge the support from the Anna M Heilmaier Foundation, Curtis L Carlson Family Foundation, Minnesota State Arts Board, hospitality partner the Graduate Hotel Minneapolis, and event sponsors PNC Bank and RBC Wealth Management. 

This season’s listing is current as of 10/22/24

Please contact Trisha Taylor at taylort@umn.edu if you have any corrections or questions.

Northrop's Aeolian-Skinner Organ

Thank you to the generous donors who continue to support programming for Northrop’s beloved Aeolian-Skinner Organ. It is because of you that this magnificent instrument’s voice will be enjoyed by many for years to come.

The Heritage Society Members

The Heritage Society honors and celebrates donors who have made estate and other planned gifts for Northrop at the University of Minnesota. 

• Nancy Allen*
• Jerry Artz
• John Follows*
• Stephen Gordon and Pat Gavan-Gordon
• Gail and Stuart Hanson
• Charlie Johnson
• Peter Lund
• Darlene M. Sholtis

*Deceased