Keyboardist Annie Lewandowski (London Improvisers Orchestra, Fred Frith, Samech) composed this song cycle about ancient Greek figures in collaboration with David Yearsley, Theresa Wong and Russell Greenberg, poetic pieces contrasting traditional use of instruments with subtle experimental approaches in a unique and fascinating set of compositional strategies.
Format: CD Condition: New Released: 2018 Country: USA Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold 3 Panels Recorded at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 2016 and 2017, by John Dieterich.
"Bitter Banquet is a multi-media song cycle inspired by pivotal moments in the lives of several characters, as portrayed by Euripides in his tragedies: Hecuba, Andromache, Iphigenia, Phaedra, Evadne, Alcestis, Polyxena, Megara, Medea and Aegisthus. Themes exploring war, loss, and grief written millennia ago are brought to life through a modern prism with the hypnotic music of composer Annie Lewandowski, aka powerdove."-fo'c'sle
"...the two pianists and two percussionists of Yarn/Wire have solicited dozens of new works from rigorists modernists and freethinking outliers alike. On successive nights during their Stone residency, the players collaborate with the saxophone-and- percussion duo Popebama, reinvent works by Katherine Young and Annie Lewandowski (both of who appear as performers), and present a substantial premiere by Travis Laplante." - Steve Smith, The New Yorker, February 4, 2019