Casting of Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands

Auditions for Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands are being held in mid-April in Culver City. Overtone Industries is accepting submissions until April 7, 2010.

National Endowment of the Arts Grant

Overtone Industries has officially been awarded the NEA Grant for the production on Songs And Dances of Imaginary Lands!!!

Spontaneous Combustion Choir

The Spontaneous Combustion Choir is a group of singers creating instant music built from a series of exercises invented by Miz Jones and evolving during rehearsal. It brings together singers of all styles and levels of training in a format that allows for wonderfully unique cohesive and spontaneous choral improvisation.

We are looking toward performing in the early summer.

Performances and rehearsals contain various configurations of the following singers:

• Eric Castro
• Julie Christensen
• Patty Cornell
• Halldor Enard
• Max Faugno
• John Fleck
• Karole Foreman
• Gregory Franklin
• Elizabeth Guilliams
• Alan House
• Brian Reid
• Ken Roht
• Heidi Swedberg
• Cesili Williams
• Silvie Zamora

…as well as many guest artistes and out-of-town drop-ins. If you are interested in participating, contact O-Lan@[remove this text]overtoneindustries.org  

Interview with O-Lan Jones

Martin Perlich, host of Arts & Roots Forum (ARF!) and program director for KCSN FM 88.5, interviewed Miz Jones about our new CD. Perlich has commented that the opera …"is a work at once determinedly modern, yet accessible for its originality, freshness, depth of feeling and unique blend of rhythmic vitality and compelling lyricism. I was, I confess, moved to tears. I commend Miz Jones and Ms. Cramer for …such a forward-looking yet timeless work…"

Click below to download the complete interview (sans music):

• Part 1
• Part 2

 

CD tracks available for download

The following tracks from the CD are now available for download. Click below to listen, to download the songs, right-click (ctrl-click on a mac) and choose "save link as".

• Sisters' Duet
• Fraternity
• Quiver Quintet

 

Overtone Records Its First CD: 'The Woman Who Forgot Her Sweater'

We're very excited to announce that the first of a projected five CDs has been recorded thanks, in part, to a $15,000 grant from the Argosy Foundation's Contemporary Music Fund.

The completed CD is now available, just in time for holiday! Donation will be $20 per CD and advance orders may be requested by contacting CD Project Manager, Nicole Roehm at nicole@[remove this text]overtoneindustries.org. Look for a postcard announcement in your mailbox in a few weeks. You may also order CDs online through PayPal.

Important Note: Shipping and handling is $2 for the first disk and $1.50 for each additional disk. You may only purchase up to 5 CDs at a time through PayPal, for larger quantities please contact Nicole Roehm at nicole@[remove this text]overtoneindustries.org.

The recording is of The Woman Who Forgot Her Sweater which premiered at the [INSIDE] the Ford Theatre in 2001 starring our resident diva, Gretchen Johnson, with Lioness-Goddesses Melody Butiu, Patty Cornell, Michele Mais, Wanda-Lee Evans, and Silvie Zamora. Richard Miro as The Husband and Julie Christensen as Claire recreate their roles on the CD. Newcomers (to Overtone) are Nmon Ford who sings the role of the Overseer and Mary Joy Deocariza who sang the role of the Maid.

Musical conductor for the CD was David O and Producer was John Ballinger. Our esteemed composer O-Lan Jones and incredible librettist Kathleen Cramer created new words and music to develop an expansive battle between the Lionesses and The Woman that made a wonderful addition to the work.

The recording includes the use of five unique “invented instruments” created by the inimitable musicologist Bart Hopkin. Also contributing music were percussionist James Snodgrass who repeats his Ford Theatre performance plus harpist Paul Baker, cellist April Guthrie, flutist Jen Roth, plus Ballinger on clarinet and David O on piano.

We had the very able assistance of Anna Woo as stage manager and Eric Arm was our resident studio engineer-genius at Headroom Audio where we recorded the opera.

The story of "Sweater," as many of you may remember, centers around The Woman who arrives too late to speak to her dying mother. Her return to the family estate in the jungle is threatened by the presence of fearsome lioness-goddesses. She leaves the safe family home to retrieve her sweater in an outbuilding only to be surrounded by the lionesses who demand she take her place among them. Her husband realizes she's been gone too long, stops dallying with The Woman's sister, Claire, and goes to find her. When The Woman sees him, she doubts her abilities to take her place, loses her footing in the lionesses' dances, and is destroyed. There is, of course, much more to the story that is best heard on our new CD!  

 

Annenberg Foundation Awards Overtone Three-Year Grant

The Annenberg Foundation has awarded Overtone Industries a three-year unrestricted grant of $150,000 to support the company's programming and general operating expenses The grant began with a $75,000 check received in April and will be followed by a $50,000 check in 2008 and $25,000 in 2009.

The grant is a validating one that will help Overtone build a very strong infrastructure to support our many programming goals in the future. Part of the funding is being used to bring on Corbett Barklie as our development director, and part supports our new CD recording and booking venue projects for developed works.

The Foundation's grant is to "Support [Overtone's] mission to create original stories that resonate today," said Wallis Annenberg, Vice President and a Trustee of the Foundation.

Established in 1989 by Walter H. Annenberg, the Foundation provides funding to nonprofit organizations in the U.S. and globally through its headquarters in Radnor, Pennsylvania and offices in Los Angeles. Its major program areas are education and youth development; arts and culture; civic; community and the environment, and health and human services. In addition, the Foundation operates a number of initiatives which expand and complement these program areas. The Annenberg Foundation exists to advance public well-being through improved communication. As the principal means of achieving this goal, the Foundation encourages the development of more effective ways to share ideas and knowledge.

A $25,000 grant from the Foundation was previously awarded to Overtone in 2006.