www.conalmaproject.com
On December 13 at 7pm Eastern (Dec. 14 at 1 am CEST), Con Alma, a communal event, will take place in Mexico City and New York City. 2 million viewers are anticipated to tune in on public TV, radio, and screens in over 10 major Mexican Cities and USA through National Sawdust live stage and the Mexican Ministry of Culture digital platforms.
Con Alma is an album and live digital experience of original works by composer Paola Prestini and vocalist and composer Magos Herrera that explores the question of how we can find communion in a time of isolation.
The album brings together over thirty musicians around the world recording in isolation, and unites us with musical partners including the all-women Amsterdam-based Ensemble Sjaella, Constellation Chor, the Young People’s Chorus of NYC, Mexico’s top symphony orchestra “Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería”, and guest virtuosos including former Kronos Quartet cellist Jeffrey Zeigler, Silk Road clarinetist Kinan Azmeh, multi-instrumentalist Gonzalo Grau, jazz guitarist Romero Lubambo, guitarist and composer Vincius Gomes and multi-instrumentalist Diego Schissi. The texts are by Alfonsina Storni, Maria Popova, and Magos herself. The stories range from children singing hopes for our environment in an ode to Rachel Carson, to what would have changed if Mary Magdalene had been invited to the table at the last supper, to the planting of a 40 fruit apple tree.
Con Alma is in collaboration with the current foremost director right now in theater and digital live formats, Ashley Tata, whose production of Mad Forest received a great review in the NYT, and who has been named a BAM artist-in-residence for the ’20/’21 season. In the live experience, Tata will create an evening comprised of self-recorded music videos that examine isolation and solitude, live-drawings by Kevork Mourad simulcast as animations for songs, and real-time conversations and storytelling with the creators and performers of these works. Audience members will be asked to contribute their voices to the event before and during the simulcast performance. This interaction will come in the form of prompts for video content created in various social media campaigns that will create spontaneous responses to questions like “what is your sound of isolation” creating a country-wide chorus, separated by geography and in different languages but joined by their intention and spirit.
Audience members will be given the opportunity to contribute their voices to the event before and during the simulcast performance. This interaction will come in the form of prompts for video content created in various social media campaigns that will create spontaneous responses to questions like “what is your sound of isolation” creating a country-wide chorus, separated by geography and in different languages but joined by their intention and spirit.
