KITTY BRAZELTON
the music I make
Two recent pieces:
CROWS (for string quartet): I. A murder of… 2. Allopreening 3. Gifting
A Woman Alone But Not Lonely: Todd Rewoldt, alto sax, Jai Jeffryes, piano
Ongoing Projects:
NEW! in-progress mixes towards ATMOS immersive audio!
Jala Smriti—Vaibu Mohan, libretto—Kitty Brazelton, music—
WINNER, 96 Hour Project 2024, Antinori Foundation Grand Prize + a commission from Atlanta Opera to create a full opera
Atlanta Opera 96 Hour Project Competition, June 17, 2024, screen shot
Recursion and Release created by MASARY 2023 Providence RI
Created by MASARY Studios, Boston
Kitty Brazelton, music, Jack Kornfield, words, from “A Meditation on Letting Go”, used by permission
Barbara Hill, soprano, Teri Kowiak, mezzo, Eric Christopher Perry, tenor, Stephan Griffin, baritone, Nathan Halbur, bass
Photos by Misha Barshteyn, 2023
Recursion and Release, 12/1-3/23, Grace Episcopal Church, Providence RI
Isaura String Quartet premiered "I am not my Photograph (you cannot erase me)" on March 7, 2020 at ArtShareLA in downtown Los Angeles. This is an excerpt from that premiere.
"The Art of Memory" is an ensemble opera with 5 singers and 8 instrumentalists, set in 4th-c. Africa and Rome. We uncover Christian father Augustine's path to sainthood via betrayal. We follow his public story of love, addiction, ambition and heartache to 386 CE where Christian creed rings Buddhist—even Muslim—and Rome is falling. Then, in a world with eerily familiar conflicts, Augustine is faced with the sin of his own ambition. To marry into money and power, he must forsake his slave-born concubine of fourteen years. Keeping their son, he sends her back to Africa alone. However he never remarries. Overcome with grief, he converts to Christianity. Becomes a saint, we know. But what happens to her? His “Confessions” only tell his own story. Here in this opera, the Concubine is given voice.
To bring his inner agony into universally shared experience, Augustine is sung by a woman in “The Art of Memory.” While I sing baptizer Bishop Ambrose.
My ensemble is diverse in gender, race, and age. My music reflects polyglot cultures of long-ago Rome and the present, with elements of modern music—live electronic processing, free jazz drumming, string quartet-cum-electric guitar, madscape polka—and ancient music—courtly medieval Arabic rhythms, Early Christian hymns (the first congregational chant in the Latin Church)—Nigerian clay pot udu, Egyptian chalice drum and primordial frame drum.
A live audience and their reactions complete the circle of meaning, integral to "The Art of Memory". We are all Augustine—and Concubine—now.
Music:
0:00 Noise of the World
0:45 Augustine's story from "Confessions"— I
1:15 the Concubine's story — I
2:22 Augustine's story from "Confessions"— II
2:48 the Concubine's story — II
3:12 Augustine argues with Alypius — III
3:41 the Concubine's story — III
4:08 Augustine gives Alypius a lesson — IV
4:30 the Concubine's story —IV
4:53 Alypius & a third companion—goodbye to Africa
5:16 All—Augustine's job in Milan: Speechify
5:59 Ambrose, Bishop of Milan (spoken)
6:22 Alto sax solo, Speechify
6:51 the Concubine's story — V
7:35 Augustine's conversion, baptism, Te Deum