Dec 6 - REMOVABLE PARTS — A Series of Love Songs About Voluntary Amputation

REMOVABLE PARTS
A Series of Love Songs About Voluntary Amputation
Created by Corey Dargel, with pianist Kathleen Supové + opening act, Ryan Driver
http://www.removableparts.com

Saturday, December 6, 2008
Doors 7pm, concert 8pm
The Music Gallery
St. George the Martyr Church
197 John St. at Stephanie

Tickets: $15 regular, $10 member, student + advance
Advance tickets at TicketWeb — BUY NOW!
Contact Info: 4162041080 / jonny@musicgallery.org

Removable Parts (9pm) is a theatrical series of love songs about voluntary amputation. In an updated version of the lover's plaint, the unrequited lover – whose heart is broken – begins to question the usefulness of his other body parts. Loosely based on medical journals, psychiatric case studies, and actors' monologue collections, the songs and banter in Removable Parts take a sideways look at amputees, devotees, and wannabes, with a balance of empathy and irreverence.

Removable Parts received the award for “Outstanding Performance-Art Production” from the 2008 New York Innovative Theatre Awards.

Corey Dargel (composer/lyricist/singer) has been called “a baroquely unclassifiable artist” (New Yorker) who makes songs that "smartly and impishly blur the boundaries between contemporary classical idioms and pop" (New York Times). His gentle assault on the pop idiom creates a tension that pervades his music: Deadpan and detached vocals reveal heartbreaking intimacies, awkward and obtrusive drum patterns struggle against fragile harmonies, vocals and music uneasily opposing each other as songs stumble to their ends. He has shared the stage with Joanna Newsom, Final Fantasy, Grizzly Bear, Anti-Social Music, Nico Muhly, the American Composers Orchestra, and others. Dargel’s debut album, Less Famous Than You, was released on Use Your Teeth (London) in May 2006 and named one of the Top Ten Albums of 2006 by Time Out New York. His forthcoming album, Other People’s Love Songs, will be released October 28th on New Amsterdam Records. Dargel is presently composing new works for singer and chamber ensemble, commissioned by the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Avian Music, and NOW Ensemble.

Kathleen Supové (pianist) is one of America's most acclaimed and versatile contemporary music pianists, known for continually redefining what it means to be a pianist/keyboardist/performance artist in today's world. She regularly presents a series of solo concerts entitled The Exploding Piano at The Flea Theater in NYC, in which she has pioneered both repertoire and presentational concepts involving electronics, theatrics, and cutting edge works for Yamaha Disklavier. She has presented a number of concert theatre works there, most notably the evening-length staged piece for singing/reciting/moving pianist called Jitters (music by Randall Woolf and texts/directing by Valeria Vasilevski). In addition, Kathleen has been a featured artist in the Summer 2000 issue of Yale Theater Journal, which was devoted to concert theatre. She has performed throughout the US, at universities and conservatories, and as a featured guest at many new music festivals, most recently the NIME Festival in NYC and the Other Minds Festival in San Francisco. Kathleen's most recent solo Infusion, is on the Koch label.

"Removable Parts pleases on almost every level... with an intelligent grace that is as moving as it is impressive." — New York Times

"Bizarre, complex, and strangely moving, Removable Parts is lyrically brilliant and truly original." — Flavorpill
"...at once uproarious and harrowing..." — The New Yorker

http://www.removableparts.com