Excerpts from Aeolus: Ken Ueno

Aeolus is written by composer-performer Ken Ueno in collaboration with poet Robert Hass, architect Thomas Tsang, and vocalist Majel Connery. It is inspired by Homer’s Odyssey and the epic meeting between Odysseus and Aeolus, the keeper of the winds. Reimagining these mythic personalities in a series of performance diptychs, the opera pits Keno Ueno’s extended vocal techniques (as Aeolus) against Majel Connery’s fluid vocalise (as Odysseus). Hass’s libretto is comprised of pre-recorded prose poems, read by Hass, suspending the action between scenes to meditate on the nexus of breath, body and death.

Commissioned by Opera Cabal, Aeolus has received work-in-progress showings at Switchboard Music Festival (SF) and High Concept Labs (Chicago). In 2016–17 it is supported by a residency at the Starline Social Club (Oakland) and a Mellon Visiting Artist Residency administered by the Newhouse Center at Wellesley College. This music preview of the opera is presented by the Wellesley College Concert Series with FLUX Quartet and The Living Earth Show.

Generously supported by the Marjorie Copland Baum Memorial Fund and the Mellon Artist in Residence Program of the Suzy Newhouse Center for the Humanities.

Photo: Ken Ueno