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PKWproductions Brings Back Their Most Uniquely Powerful and Disturbing Combination of Music and Film with A Clockwork Orange
PKWproductions director P. Kellach Waddle and a host of Austin's finest classical musicians will present once again an extraordinary classical event with two live chamber concerts to accompany Stanley Kubrick’s controversial cult classic A Clockwork Orange as the “Music and a Movie” series continues on Sunday, August 2 at 8 p.m. at the Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek.
Second only to this series' flagship event, Amadeus, PKWproductions has received more demand to repeat this event than any other in the series' nearly 4-year history since PKWproductions’ first "Music and A Movie" presentation of A Clockwork Orange in November 2008 met with a near-sold out audience.
Since the film’s teenage miscreant Alex DeLarge is famous for drinking drugged milk and listening to Beethoven, the entire program is dedicated to the iconic German composer. The pre-movie concert's theme is "Obscure Beethoven" with a presentation of three of Beethoven's lesser known works and in a special intermission concert, three of Austin's most prominent composers (P. Kellach Waddle, Graham Reynolds and Peter Stopchinski) will present three brand new pieces on themes of Beethoven.
The intermission concert music will include Waddle's own "Slumbering With Beethoven; Berceuse-Fanatsiesatz on Beethoven's Klaviersonate in F Minor-2nd Movement" for violin, cello, bass and piano and his lyrical "Fantasy-Distillation-Aria on The Second Movement of Beethoven's Piano Concerto #5" for cello and bass as well as new works by Graham Reynolds and Peter Stopchinski.
The obscure works of Beethoven featured on the pre-movie concert are:
The first movement of Beethoven's Horn Sonata in a transcription for bass and piano
The first movement of a very early duet originally for flute and bassoon transcribed for violin and bass and
The concert aria “Ah! Perfido!” for soprano and piano.
PROGRAM
PRE-MOVIE CONCERT:
ALL MUSIC BY LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Sonata in G for Bass and Piano (transcribed from the Sonata for French Horn and Piano) -- First Movement: Allegro Moderato
P. K. Waddle, Bass, Nikki Birdsong, Piano
Duo for Violin and Bass in D Major (transcribed from Duo for Flute and Bassoon): Allegro Commodo, P. K. Waddle, Bass, Helen Bravenec, Violin
Ah! Perfido! : Concert Aria for Soprano and Piano
Emily Breedlove, Soprano, Nikki Birdsong, Piano
INTERMISSION CONCERT:
(All first three pieces world premieres)
Piece on Beethoven theme by P. Stopchinski
Piece on Beethoven theme by G. Reynolds
Slumbering With Beethoven; Berceuse-Fanatsiesatz on Beethoven's Klaviersonate in F Minor-2nd Movement for Violin, Cello, Bass and Piano
Helen Bravenec, Violin, Hector Moreno, Cello, P. K. Waddle, Bass, Nikki Birdsong, Piano
Fantasy-Aria-Distillation on Beethoven's Piano Concerto #5 -2nd Movement for Cello and Bass
Hector Moreno, Cello, P. K. Waddle, Bass
A Clockwork Orange, Dir. Stanley Kubrick (1971)
Teenage miscreant Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell) wanders aimlessly amid a bleak, futuristic urban landscape. Along with his fellow thugs, he drinks drugged milk and listens to Beethoven -- that is, when he's not stealing or raping or beating people in nihilistic orgies of violence. A Clockwork Orange, based on Anthony Burgess' novel, is as powerful as when it was released in 1971. The promotional tagline for the film read, "Being the adventures of a young man... who couldn't resist pretty girls... or a bit of the old ultra-violence... went to jail, was re-conditioned... and came out a different young man... or was he?" The film won Academy Awards for Best Director (Stanley Kubrick), Best Film Editing (Bill Butler), Best Picture, and Best Writing (Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium by Stanley Kubrick).
ABOUT P. KELLACH WADDLE
P. Kellach Waddle, hailed by Austin radio luminary John Aielli as an "amazing, incredible virtuoso"; by Viola By Choice Director Aurelien Petillot as an "Austin legend"; and recently nominated by the Texas Commission on the Arts for "State of Texas Musician of the Year," enjoys a busy career of growing renown as a composer, bassist and writer.
As a composer, he now three Pulitzer Prize nominations to his credit for concertos he has written for members of the Cleveland Orchestra and most recently for his String Quintet #5 inspired by the writings of Kurt Vonnegut. Recently his String Quartet #2 commissioned by the Miro Quartet won the 2008 Austin Critic's Table award for Outstanding Original Composition.
With a catalogue approaching 325 works and a list of performances approaching 600, he continues to be one of the most prolific and most performed composers of his generation. His music has been featured on NPR and among other radio stations in nearly 40 states and 10 countries on 4 continents.
Along with P. Kellach Waddle's busy work as an orchestral and chamber music performer (including his role as a member of The Austin Symphony since 1992), he is one of the few dozen bassists in the world with management as a solo artist. In this capacity he has performed over 130 solo recitals and over a dozen performances with orchestras as a concerto soloist. Recently chosen as one of the few dozen bass soloists in the world to give a recital at the 2009 International Society of Bassists Convention in June 2009, his ovation-garnering performance has been praised with such quotes as: "(Waddle) is now obviously one of the great bassists of the world…" and "…ovation did not come from his virtuosity in the final piece, the root of that ovation started when the audience heard (Waddle's) bow first hit the string". Mr. Waddle's other busy activities include his work as a journalist and writer, having published nearly 3000 articles in the fields of TV, books and movies, politics, and music.
Mr. Waddle is also a card dealer and croupier having been employed by Casino Connections, Inc. since 2000.
Upcoming premieres of his music for 2009 include a string quartet for The Marian Anderson String Quartet among more than 35 more chamber works for trios, quartets, quintets and duos. The Balcones Chamber Orchestra and the orchestra of St. Stephen's Episcopal School will also perform orchestral works by Mr. Waddle in the coming season. The Miro Quartet's premiere of his String Quartet #2 was one of the three music events noted in The Top 10 Arts Events in Austin for 2007 by The Austin American-Statesman's Jeanne-Claire VanRyzin . One of the two remaining music events in that list, the premiere of Graham Reynolds' cantata "The Odyssey," featured P. Kellach Waddle on bass.
Other notable premieres for the 2009 calendar year include multiple works for Austin Symphony concertmaster Jessica Mathaes following the success of her solo debut in Dec. 2007 (including a trio for Mrs. Mathaes and famed Houston violist Lawrence Wheeler), a wealth of church pieces to be premiered at Hyde Park Methodist Church (where he was appointed Composer-Artist in Residence in Spring 2007), a solo cello piece for Austin Symphony Principal Cello Douglas Harvey in late 2009, other bass music to be premiered by Jessica Gilliam-Valls throughout 2009 eight new pieces for Cello and Bass duet for late 2009 and six new works to be premiered throughout the fall on PKWproductions' " Synthesis of Music and Literature Series" including pieces based on " Catcher In The Rye" and "Frankenstein". Recent major premieres include more than a dozen other pieces inspired by literature with more than a dozen more coming in the 2009 calendar year, as well as a Clarinet and Piano Sonata, a solo clarinet work, and another Clarinet/Violin and Piano work that were premiered in Stockholm, Sweden in late 2008 as well as Waddle's other recently hailed work for this instrumentation by The Austin Chamber Ensemble/Trio Contaste in Spring 2009.
Mr. Waddle has been profiled in several TV and print medium in the past several months, including Austin Monthly, The Austin Chronicle and The Austin American-Statesman as well as on KOOP, KMFA and KUT radio stations. More information about and transcripts of these profiles can be viewed at pkw.wyattbrand.com. (Most recently Waddle was featured with fellow Austin composers Dan Welcher, Graham Reynolds and Peter Stopchinski as part of a front page Austin Chronicle article by Robert Faires ).
Following up on Waddle's writing for "unusual" media, such as his widely publicized pieces for massed tubas/euphoniums and organ for the University of Texas carillon (bell tower) in May 2007 and a piece for (19-piece) Contrabassoon Choir in the summer of 2007, Waddle will have a piece for massed trombones and organ premiered in 2009.
Other works to be premiered outside of Austin during the 2009-10 season. include five pieces for organ in Boston, Mass., and sonatas for solo contrabassoon, solo oboe d'amore, and violin and bassoon as well as more than a dozen new works for bass (including trios for bass/bassoon/piano and bass/contrabassoon/piano in New York City). More than 80 recordings of PKW's pieces, from solo works to all three of his major Pulitzer prize-nominated orchestral works, can now be heard by entering "P. Kellach Waddle" at www.classicallounge.com.
GRAHAM REYNOLDS
COMPOSITIONS include five symphonies, two operas, a violin concerto, a full length ballet, a work for children's choir, more than a dozen one movement string quartets and countless chamber music pieces.
FILM scores include five feature films, dozens of short films, animated shorts, and more than 20 silent films with film collaborators including Richard Linklater, Steve Collins and Luke Savisky.
PERFORMANCE highlights include a live appearance on NPR's Talk of the Nation and a night at the Kennedy Center.
Reynolds' THEATER work ranges from recorded incidental music to fully scored musicals with live accompaniment on more than a dozen productions. Graham is the resident composer with Austin's Salvage Vanguard Theater and a company member with the Rude Mechs.
DANCE collaborators have included choreographers Yakov Sharir, Ellen Bartel, Andrea Ariel, and Ballet Austin.
PETER STOPSCHINSKI
Pianist/composer Peter Stopschinski began playing in the rock band Brown Whörnet in 1993, toured nationally and released many albums including original scores to the silent film classics Nosferatu and The Adventures of Prince Achmed. In 1999 he teamed up with Graham Reynolds to form the Golden Hornet Project which led to an entire catalogue of compositions from solo instruments to chamber groups of all sizes including a concerto for viola and orchestra and five symphonies. Peter teaches music theory at the Austin Chamber Music Center and is composer in residence at the Austin Waldorf School.
ABOUT PKWPRODUCTIONS
PKWproductions continues to forge itself into a major presence in the crowded Austin classical music scene. With an emphasis on collaboration between art forms and breaking the "fourth wall" of dogma that intimidates many possible listeners of this genre of music, PKWproductions continues to draw both established and new audiences through innovative programming. Collaborations have included lectures on art given by Mr. Waddle before premieres of new musical works about the art, discussions on literary works previewing original concerts inspired by the books in a series now held at Book People, and a series of often sold-out "Music and a Movie" concerts in conjunction with Alamo Drafthouse.
Also under the PKWproductions umbrella is another series entitled "The (instrument(s)) according to PKW" -- a set of chamber concerts that feature Waddle's works for a particular instrument or set of instruments. Along with unusual programming such as music by warhorse composers in new instrumentations (music by Mozart for four double basses, music by Tchaikovsky for four trumpets, etc.) and one or more world premieres written by both PKW and host of other prominent local composers at every concert, PKWproductions continues to carve a unique niche in the Austin musical landscape for both performers and audiences alike.
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