Agamemnon
Open Music presents a Readers Theater adaptation of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, the first play in his wild and chilling trilogy The Oresteia. The plays that make up The Oresteia are some of the oldest works of theater extant in the Western tradition. The plays are intense, heavy and epic storytelling that is just this side of religious ritual. Open Music’s adaptation will include live music for harp, dulcimer, cello, and percussion, co-composed by Kevin Sims and Jack Bagby and using ancient Greek scales.
About Open Music
Open Music is an ensemble presenting works by composers of the 20th and 21st centuries, improvised and original music, adaptions of theatrical pieces, and multimedia collaborations.
Founded in 2014 by percussionist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Kevin Sims, Open Music is a project that continues the 20th century’s many strands of everyday avant-garde art making. These strands include poet Federico García Lorca’s La Barraca theater company, painter and writer Asger Jorn’s collective art endeavors, the text scores of Pauline Oliveros, the graphic scores of Christian Wolff, the early years of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), the mid-1960’s work of Sun Ra and his Solar/Astro-Infinity Arkestra, and Cornelius Cardew’s Scratch Orchestra. All of these artists saw the importance in not only experimenting with the materials of art, but also with the ways we get together to make it.
