Join composer Lisa Bielawa as she unveils her new, broadly participatory musical work Voters’ Broadcast in its entirety for the first time online in this virtual event hosted by University Musical Society President Matthew VanBesien, and co-presented by University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and Kaufman Music Center in New York.
Guests will include celebrated artist and Wayne State University Professor and Chair of the James Pearson Duffy Department of Art and Art History Sheryl Oring, creator of the I Wish To Say project, excerpts of which form the text for Voters’ Broadcast.
Lisa Bielawa has created Voters’ Broadcast for an unlimited number of voices and instruments made up of choral singers and instrumentalists from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; the University Musical Society Choral Union; Kaufman Music Center in New York; and more, for performance online and/or by socially distanced ensembles. Her mission with the work is to stimulate voter engagement, political awareness, and community participation in challenging lockdown conditions, through the act of giving voice to the concerns of fellow citizens during the lead-up to the 2020 Presidential election.
The text for Voters’ Broadcast is excerpted from artist Sheryl Oring’s ongoing project I Wish to Say, in collaboration with University of Michigan’s Stamps Gallery, which uses vintage typewriters for social change. I Wish to Say consists of performances in which Oring and a pool of typists work on vintage manual typewriters and invite the public to dictate postcards to the U.S. President. In the current circumstances, Oring and the typists are holding Zoom sessions, during which participants dictate their messages to the next President. Launched in 2004, the project has garnered nearly 4,000 postcards to President Bush, President Obama, and President Trump, all of which have been mailed to the White House on behalf of the participant as part of the performance.
Voters’ Broadcast is commissioned as part of the Democracy & Debate Theme Semester by the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor with support from its School of Music, Theatre & Dance, and developed in partnership with Kaufman Music Center in New York, where Bielawa is a 2020 Artist in Residence.
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Watch live below on Oct. 28 at 3pm
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