Earthwise welcomes Bahaya featuring Richard Marriott and friends

BAYAHA “danger” is a new multimodal opera composed by Richard Marriott and written by Ruth Margraff, with a concept inspired by renowned composer I Made Subandi born in Batuyang, Indonesia.

BAHAYA is devised from ocean tales from Indonesia, Greenland and 12th century poet Farid Ud-Din Attar with a story of two sisters who have drifted apart as glaciers melt, one to the South and one to the North. They command a Wayfarer to make his way across seven seas with an ancient, stolen comb, and to then descend to the polluted ocean floor on a mysterious quest for purification.

BAHAYA will be performed by Gamelan Sekar Jaya musicians Carla Fabrizio and Sarah Willner, Club Foot Orchestra musicians Beth Custer and Chris Grady, and Russian Telegraph bandleader David James. Vocals by Emiko Susilo and Federico Cusigch.

BAHAYA is composed by Richard Marriott, with a libretto by Ruth Margraff and experimental video by Clemencia Macias, Bob Pacelli & Liz Walsh. Video editing by Steve Mobia.

Richard Marriott began his study of the trombone at the age of 10 and added other wind instruments and voice in high school. He was part of a flourishing Minneapolis Free Jazz scene in the 1970s. After studying at Minnesota with Dominick Argento and UCSD with Pauline Oliveros, he studied Indian music with Ali Akbar Khan, shakuhachi with Masayuki Koga and synthesizer design with Serge Tchrepnin. He later designed novel synthesizers for groups ranging from The Residents to Captain Beefheart. He composed music for Atari Games. He is the founder and artistic director of the Club Foot Orchestra, an ensemble best known for live music performance with silent films. His collaborators on other projects include choreographers Della Davidson, Yoshiko Chuma, Yin Mei; Balinese composers Made Subandi, Nyoman Windha; New York percussionist Kenny Wollesen; rock musician Snakefinger; vocalists Nina Hagen, Pamela Z.; Chinese librettist Xu Ying; filmmakers Philip Kaufman, David Teague, Ed Robbins; Shadowlight director Larry Reed; playwrights Ruth Margraff, O-Lan Jones; technologist Scot Gresham-Lancaster; and visual artist Lesley Dill.

Beth Custer is an Emmy Award winning, San Francisco based composer, performer, recording artist, bandleader, and the proprietor of BC Records. She has numerous recordings out with ensembles The Beth Custer Ensemble, Eighty Mile Beach, Clarinet Thing, Trance Mission and Club Foot Orchestra. She performs Bb, alto, bass, contrabass clarinets, flute, tenor sax, voice, piano, percussion, and toys.

Host or Publisher Mark Weiss dba Earthwise