a song cycle by Phil Kline
featuring: Theo Bleckmann, Todd Reynolds and David Cossin

ZIPPO SONGS
Airs of War and Lunacy
composed by Phil Kline

Zippo Songs - one of the NYT's "Best Classical CDs of 2004"

"Phil Kline has fashioned brilliant American lieder for the 21st century." - NYT 12/12/04

The New York Times has named ZIPPO SONGS one of "The Best Classical CDs of 2004."  If you'd like to purchase the ZIPPO SONGS CD - please go to Canteloupe Music http://www.cantaloupemusic.com

Past Performances:

CNN
April 6th, 8pm
Paula Zahn NOW
A taped segment focusing on the Rumsfeld Songs!

CD Release Performance
Joe's Pub
January 20th, 2004

CD Release - February 2004
Cantaloupe Music

World Premiere:
HERE
145 Ave of the Americas
Wednesday May 28th - Saturday May 31th, 2003

director - Emma Griffin
sets & costumes - Louisa Thompson
lights - Mark Barton
assistant director - Stephen Brackett
stage manager - Megan Anne Bezdek.


ZIPPOS SONGS is based on a range of sources including: the poems of GI's inscribed on their Zippo lighters during the Viet Nam War; Donald Rumsfeld speeches; and the poetry of David Shaprio.

ZIPPO SONGS was commissioned by Salt Theater with a grant from the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust Commission Program. This proudction has also received major support from the Greenwall Foundation.

Called "brilliant" and "a true original" by the New York Times, Phil Kline has stretched the boundaries between contemporary classical, rock and ambient electronic music, often employing dozens or even hundreds of boom box tape players, mixed with acoustic and electronic instruments to create multi-dimensional sound environments in non-traditional venues such as the Brooklyn Anchorage, Washington Square or Central Park's South Meadow, as well as the Whitney Museum, Alice Tully Hall, the Kitchen, the Knitting Factory, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and London's Barbican Centre.

His compositions include Bachman's Warbler for harmonicas and 12 boomboxes, premiered at the Bang On A Can Marathon in 1992, Unsilent Night, an annual outdoor event for massed boomboxes which debuted in the streets of Greenwich Village in December of that year, Singing on the water, presented throughout the Whitney Museum during the 1995 Biennial, The Holy City of Ashtabula premiered at the Brooklyn Anchorage in July 1996 and the outdoor tableau Winter Music, which was performed with Ice Theater of New York in Central Park in December 1996. In 1997, Exquisite Corpses for sextet and tapes, commissioned by the Bang On A Can All-Stars, was premiered at Lincoln Center and in 1998 his electric guitar concerto The Garden of Divorce was premiered by Mark Stewart and the Glenn Branca ensemble at the Barbican Centre in London. Recent works include his first String Quartet, a series for solo violin and electronics for violinist Todd Reynold, the music video triptych Meditations in an Emergency, a song cycle When I Had a Voice for soprano and viol consort and an opera Into the Fire based on texts of Luc Sante. CDs include 'Glow in the Dark' on CRI and the newly-released 'Unsilent Night' on Cantaloupe.

Kline was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and raised in Akron, Ohio. Upon earning a degree in English Literature at Columbia, he established roots in the downtown New York rock scene, cofounding the art-punk band the Del-Byzanteens with filmmaker Jim Jarmusch and painter James Nares and collaborating with photographer Nan Goldin on the soundtrack to her "Ballad of Sexual Dependency." He also joined the Glenn Branca Ensemble, with which he toured extensively and participated in numerous recordings. After studies at the Mannes College of Music he embarked upon a career as a composer.

Selected Performances and Installations
2002 - Shadow Traffic (urban work-in-progress) at MATA Festival, NYC; The Blue Room, String Quartet with video at The Kitchen, NYC; Unsilent Night in Greenwich Village, NYC, Tallahasse, FL, Brunswick, ME, Vancouver, BC, and Philadelphia, PA; Exquisite Corpses performed by Bang on a Can All-Stars on world tour; Red Mercury for choreographer David Hurwith, Northhampton, MA
2001 - Premiere of song cycle When I Had a Voice at Grace Church, Manhattan; Premiere of A Change of Hearts for small orchestra, SUNY Suffolk, Selden, NY; Premiere of Video Symphony Meditations in an Emergency, Ought-One FestivAl, Montpelier, VT; Premiere of Reynolds Etudes op. 1 for Violin and Electronics, Cutting Room, NYC; Last Words before Vanishing from the Face of the Earth, installation on top of Terrible Mountain, Ludlow, VT; Vigil, music for candlelight procession, Union Square, NYC; Unsilent Night in Washington Square, NYC, Tallahassee, FL and Vancouver, BC
2000 - Premiere of Yawp at Bang on a Can Millenium Marathon, Brooklyn Academy of Music; Premiere of opera Into the Fire at the Kitchen, NYC; Premiere of String Quartet No. 1 at the Brooklyn Anchorage; Volume: Bed of Sound, installation at P.S. 1, NYC; Unbelievable with choreographer David Hurwith at Pfefferberg, Berlin; Chant at Bang on a Can European Marathon at Kampnagel, Hamburg, Germany; Tiborocity, performance-installation for Tibor Kalman retrospective at New Museum of Contemporary Art, NYC; Unsilent Night in Greenwich Village, NYC, Tallahassee, FL and Berlin, Germany
1999 - Unsilent Night performed in the hallways and offices of MTV, NYC; Holy City of Ashtabula for massed tape players at Transmissions Festival, Duke University, Durham N. C.; Holy City and Chant at the Knitting Factory, NYC
1998 - Electric guitar concerto The Garden of Divorce performed by Mark Stewart and the Glenn Branca Ensemble at the Barbican Centre, London; Holy City of Ashtabula at Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT; Exquisite Corpses
performed by Bang on a Can All-Stars at Knitting Factory, NYC and Amsterdam Concertgebouw
1997 - Exquisite Corpses, premiered by the Bang On a Can All-Stars at Lincoln Center; Premonition for massed tape players written as fanfare for Bang On a Can Festival's 10th anniversary celebration; A Walk in the Park, installation for the New Museum for Contemporary Art 25th Anniversary Gala; Gauntlet, installation for the New York Art Exchange Show at 67 Broad
1996 - Winter Music for 100 boom boxes, sound system and ice skaters, with Ice Theater of New York in Central Park South Meadow and Wollman Rink; Chant at the Bang On a Can Marathon, Alice Tully Hall; The Holy City of Ashtabula for massed tape players presented as part of Creative Time's "Music in the Anchorage"; A Day in the Life of the Universe, sound sculpture at the New Museum for Contemporary Art
1995 - Singing on the water, walking boom box sound sculpture in the Whitney Museum of American Art, during the Whitney Biennial Ehhibition; willow willow, music for choreographer David Hurwith at P.S. 122; A Fantasy on One Note at Bridgewater/Lustberg Gallery, part of Soho Arts Festival
1994 - The Cassowaries for E-bow guitar orchestra at La Mama Galleria Bachman's Warbler for CRI 40th Anniversary celebration at Lincoln Center; Chant for voice and interactive tape system at CBs Gallery
1993 - A Fantasy on One Note for electric guitar, massed amplifiers and delay systems, premiered at the University of Minnesota Electric Guitar Composers festival; New York premiere of A Fantasy on One Note at the Kitchen, 1993 Bang On a Can Festival; Incidental music for Caroline Seymour's play 'Stairway to Heaven'
1992 - Bachman's Warbler for harmonicas and interactive tape system at the Bang On a Can Marathon; Premiere of Unsilent Night, boombox sound sculpture played in the streets of the Village (performed annually through 2001)

Recordings
Unsilent Night, Cantaloupe 21005 (2001)
The Housatonic at Henry Street on 'Immersion,' Starkland DVD audio, 5.1
surround (2001)
Exquisite Corpses, on Bang on a Can All-Stars 'Renegade Heaven' Cantaloupe
21001 (2001)
Franz in the Underworld, on 'An Alternative Schubertiade' CRI 809 (1999)
Glow in the Dark, CRI 801 (1998)
Premonition for Virtual String Orchestra on 'Emergency Music' CRI 770 (1997)
A Fantasy On One Note on 'New York Guitars' CRI 698 (1995)
Bachman's Warbler, on 'Bang On a Can Live Vol. 2' CRI 646(1993)
Also..two albums as guitarist, writer and producer with The Del-Byzanteens
on 4AD Records

Commissions
Pictures of an Exhibitionist, piano work for Kathy Supove, premiere
scheduled for Roulette, NYC, April 2003
Zippo Songs , song cycle for Theo Bleckmann, premiere scheduled for HERE,
NYC, May 2003
The Bilitis Project, premiere scheduled for Flynn Theater, Burlington, VT,
February 2003
String Quartet No. 1, premiered at the Brooklyn Anchorage, July 2000
Exquisite Corpses for the Bang On a Can All Stars, premiered at Walter
Reade Theater, April 1997

Awards
New York State Council of the Arts, 2002
Mary Flagler Cary Trust Commissioning Program, 2001,1999
Meet the Composer Commissioning USA Program, 2001
American Composers Forum Composer Commissioning Program, 2000
Virgil Thomson Foundation, 1998
Alice M.Ditson Fund, 1997
Meet The Composer Fund, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000

Lectures-Residencies
2001 - SUNY Suffolk, Selden, NY
1999 - Duke University, Durham, NC, Goddard College, Plainfiels, VT, MTV
Labs, NYC
1998 - Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT
1993 - University of Minnesota, Morehead MN

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Theo Bleckmann is a vocalist and composer performing in jazz, contemporary music and performance art throughout North America, Europe and Asia as a leader and as a soloist in ensembles. He has worked with musicians and composers such as Anthony Braxton, Mark Dresser, Dave Douglas, Philip Glass, Peter Herbert, Sheila Jordan, Meredith Monk, Ikue Mori, Ned Rothenberg, and Bang On A Can’s Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe. He also performed as a soloist with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, Merce Cunningham Dance Company and Mark Morris Dance Group.

JazzTimes wrote about Bleckmann: “With warmth and unconstrained spirit, [he] cleverly stretches within his three octave range, creating fresh (often eerie) vocal contrasts. Bleckmann is an uncommon male singer, a talented navigator who boldly surges against melodic currents yet always remains captain of his craft”. Bleckmann’s 1997 Songlines release, “No Boat”, with guitarist Ben Monder, has been described by the Village Voice as “a disc of improv pieces marked by and imperturbable cool, worthy of the Bill Evans Trio”. In February and in October of 2001 Bleckmann and Monder toured Japan and are invited to perform at the Yokohama Jazz Festival again in May 2002. Bleckmann’s collaboration with percussionist John Hollenbeck can be heard on “static still” (gpe records, 2002) and on John Hollenbeck’s Quartet Lucy (CRI, 2001). Bleckmann also appears on Sheila Jordan’s CD “Jazz Child” (High Note), on Ben Monder’s “Excavation” (Arabesque) and Ikue Mori’s “one hundred aspects of the moon” (Tzadik). Bleckmann’s most recent CD “Origami” (Songlines, 2001) received four and a half stars (out of five) from Downbeat Magazine which they called one of 2001 best releases.

Theo Bleckmann is a most versatile vocalist and composer of jazz, contemporary music and performance art who is part of "a new generation of singers who uses his voice like an other-worldly horn, versed in the American song tradition but just as likely to sail off on arabesques of wordless improvisations that are far removed from conventional “scatting” (Steve Hahn, WKXCI - Tucson, AZ).

His other work includes a commission by the Whitney Museum of American Art at Philip Morris to compose and create a music performance piece out of Kenneth Goldsmith’s text Fidget, which premiered in June 1998. Bleckmann has also collaborated, toured and recorded extensively with composer/pianist Kirk Nurock; “Theo & Kirk, 1993, and “Looking Glass River”, 1995 (Traumton)and with bassist Mark Dresser’s Force Green, “Force Green” (SoulNote). Playing the gangster Dutch Schultz, he toured Holland in “The True Last Words of Dutch Schultz”, a new music theater piece created for him in collaboration with director Valeria Vasilevski and composer Eric Salzman. From 19995-1998, Theo Bleckmann and performance artist Lynn Book developed and performed Mercuria. This interdisciplinary, continuous performance project was produced by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and performed in New York at HERE in a three week run. As a sound improvisor, Bleckmann has performed, created and developed movie, television and theatre scores, among them space Alien language for “Men in Black” by Steven Spielberg, “Star Trek: Envoy” (composed by Meredith Monk) and several radio plays and theatre scores in which he created soundscapes and atmospherical vocal sounds.

Theo Bleckmann's work has been recognized with several awards including a Presser Award for Outstanding Talent and the ASCAP/Gershwin Award for his composition “Chorale #1 for Eight Voices”as well as grants from the Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Bleckmann has been a member of Meredith Monk and Vocal Ensemble since 1994 performing numerous of her theater and concert works among them “Facing North” in duo with Ms. Monk, “The Politics of Quiet” (Bessie Award), “Magic Frequencies” and her most recent Mercy in collaboration with installation artist Ann Hamilton. He also sang the lead in in John Moran’s “Book of the Dead” at the public Theater in NY, performed a lead in Band on a Can’s Obie Award-winning opera “Carbon Copy Building”, and appeared as a soloist with the Bang on a Can Allstars. His latest projects include his solo voice performance that premiered at the POL festival in Frankfurt and an evening of German songs by composers ranging as far as Eisler, Weill, Ives, Strauss and Kraftwerk. He has recently performed the songs of John Hollenbeck with the Jazz Big Band Graz in Graz, Austria and will continue to work in duo with Mr. Hollenbeck on their second US tour in the winter of 2002. Also, Bleckmann is currently developing a solo music theater performance in collaboration with librettist and director Laurie MacCants about the lost library of ancient Alexandria.

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Todd Reynolds, labeled “New York’s reigning classical/jazz violinist” by The New Yorker, ,and “the hardest working violinist in New York” by WNYC’s John Schaefer, was once a student of the late Jascha Heifetz, studied at the Eastman School of Music, was former Principal Second Violin of the Rochester Philharmonic, and holds a Master's degree from SUNY at Stony Brook.

As an improviser and solo interpreter of new music from classical to jazz and pop, Mr. Reynolds has appeared and/or recorded with such artists as Anthony Braxton, Uri Caine, John Cale, Steve Coleman, Joe Jackson, Dave Liebman, Yo-Yo Ma, Graham Nash, Steve Reich, Marcus Roberts, Wayne Shorter and Cassandra Wilson.

In addition to his solo appearances at home and abroad, Mr. Reynolds appears as guest artist with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and is often featured as violin soloist and chamber musician with Bang on a Can. Mr. Reynolds is a co-founder of Ethel, New York's hippest string quartet. He is devoted to the performance of new music, having premiered compositions by Michael Gordon, John King, Phil Kline, Ingram Marshall, Steve Reich, and Julia Wolfe, among many others. He is a member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project, and tours with composer Tan Dun as soloist in his Water Passion after St. Matthew.

Mr. Reynolds is currently working on the fourth incarnation of Still Life With Microphone, a series of innovative, multidisciplinary events that allow him to incorporate composed and improvised music with elements of video and theater arts. He is a recipient of a grant from the American Composers Forum for Still Life, which has been designed and performed at The Flea Theater, Gale Gates et al., and Galapagos Art Space in New York. Still Life version 3.0 featured a premiere of September Canons written for Mr. Reynolds by composer Ingram Marshall, and Still Life version 4.0 is on the way as a one man show featuring the music of Marshall, Phil Kline and premieres by Mr. Reynolds with computer controlled audio and video.

He has worked alongside great artists as Bernadette Peters and Reba McEntire on Broadway, fiddling and dancing in the Tony-Award winning Annie, Get Your Gun, and has recorded for Nonesuch, CRI, and Atlantic Records. He can also be heard on Tan Dun's soundtrack for the film Fallen, starring Denzel Washington, as well as numerous television soundtracks and commercials. Currently he also also tours as part of the Mahavishnu Project, a five-piece ensemble which centers around the music of John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra and with The Betty Buckley Band. Current far-reaching creative collaborations include a duo with Evan Ziporyn called Tight-Fitting Garments, and with Phil Kline, who is writing a series of 24 compositions called The Reynolds’ Etudes for violin and electronics.

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