Abstract
Russia: Today (2020) is a combination of ethnography, sociology, and interdisciplinary artistic research, commenced in 2017 as part of a European Union National Institutes of Culture and Austrian Foreign Ministry initiative (Trauma & Revival), later supported by the European Network of Opera Academies, Helsinki Festival, and the HKBU Start-up Grant Tier 2 (RC-SGT2/18-19/ARTS/002), and awarded the Guggenheim fellowship in 2018 for its future impact on the discourse over Russian identity. The work has since been awarded further funding by the United States Department of State and has been featured on radio and TV programs in the EU and in Russia. The resulting work is a fifty minute-long staged vocal work setting lyrics crowdsourced from hundreds of participants of the project across Russia, the former Soviet Union, and the present-day European Union asking questions of Russian identity, past, present, and future in four different languages and among participants ranging from elementary schoolchildren to WWII veterans. It premiered on the EU-Russia border in September 2021, and was reviewed by various international publications and national classical music radio programs. For example, Eesti Kultuurileht “SIRP”, the main Estonian culture journal, wrote: “What could be more beautiful than creating a work from texts born of the heartache of ordinary people, giving a voice to their inner world and thus helping to change the world?” The production then toured Russian cinemas in October-November 2021, occasionally accompanied by mixed mode (live + Zoom) discussions between myself and local/international artists and political leaders, an incredible event in a country with exceptionally high censorship rates. The work will finally debut in London at Kings Place at a feature concert on February 16, 2023, with EXAUDI presenting Russia: Today to British audiences for the first time. The project also has its own website, funded primarily by the US State Department, focusing on the expansive research materials and public-oriented work of the project: http://www.russiatoday.live
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Place of Publication | Narva Vaba Lava (2021); ZARYA Centre for Contemporary Art (2021); Kings Place London (2023) |
| Publisher | Kings Place |
| Edition | 3rd |
| Media of output | Other |
| Size | live performance |
| Publication status | Published - Jan 2023 |
Scopus Subject Areas
- Music
