Sex and the Orchestra, Op. 171

Op. 171 SEX AND THE ORCHESTRA
(January 23, 2009)
I. Happy Funeral Music (The Little Death)
II. Downfall (Detumescence)


Score:

https://imslp.org/wiki/Sex_and_the_Orchestra%2C_Op.171_(Alburger%2C_Mark)

Performance:

February 28, 2009
San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra
Old First Church, San Francisco, CA

Recording:

IMPROVISED LIAISONS
(Complete Works, Volume 80)


SEX AND THE ORCHESTRA is a diptych in preparation for the mounting of Sex and the Bible, in the spring of 2010, as part of San Francisco Cabaret Opera's Fresh Voices X season.  The two pieces are new orchestrations of Happy Funeral Music from Diocletian: A Pagan Opera, Op. 90 (2000, depicting a Christian massacre), and Downfall from Samson and Delilah, Op. 65 (1998, Abimelech's death by the hand of a woman in the Book of Judges).  The music is troped respectively on titular compositions by Henry Purcell and Camille Saint-Saens.


Dr. Mark Alburger (b. 1957, Upper Darby, PA) is a multiple-award-winning ASCAP composer of postminimal, postpopular, and postcomedic sensibilities.  His compositions are generally assembled or troped over pieces ranging from ancient and world music, to postmodern art and vernacular sources -- 171 opus numbers (markalburgerworks.blogspot.com), including 16 concertos, 20 operas, 9 symphonies, and the four-hours-and-counting opera-oratorio work-in-progress, The Bible.  He is Music Director of San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra (sfcco.org) and San Francisco Cabaret Opera / Goat Hall Productions (goathall.org), Editor-Publisher of 21st-Century Music Journal (21st-centurymusic.blogspot.com and 21st-centurymusic.com), Instructor in Music Literature and Theory at Diablo Valley and St. Mary's Colleges, and Music Critic for Commuter Times.  He studied at Swarthmore College (B.A.) with Gerald Levinson and Joan Panetti, Dominican University (M.A., Composition) with Jules Langert, Claremont Graduate University (Ph.D., Musicology) with Roland Jackson, and privately with Terry Riley.  Alburger writes daily at markalburger2009.blogspot.com and is in the fourth year of an 11-year project recording his complete works for New Music Publications and Recordings.

Raga Improvisations, Op. 170

Op. 170 RAGA IMPROVISATIONS
(January 5, 2009)
for Instruments
     Alap
     Gat
     Jhala


Score:

Recording:

IMPROVISED LIAISONS
(Complete Works, Volume 80

Sex and the Bible: The Opera, Op. 169

 Op. 169 SEX AND THE BIBLE: THE OPERA
(January 1, 2009)
For Voices and Instruments


PART I - GENESIS
1. THE CREATION

III. Let the waters be gathered VII. Let us make man 


 2. QUARTET FOR THE BEGINNING OF TIME: ADAM AND EVE AND CAIN AND ABEL


 II. Vocalise for the Disobedience at the Beginning of Time
III. Abyss of Separation 

IV. Ragtime Intermezzo of Expulsion
V. Lounging in an Eternity of Strife
VI. Blues Dance of Fury
VII. Fathering Hope
VIII. Lounging in Mortality (Baby Boom Boogie-Woogie Begats)
3. NOAH'S FLOOD ("Noah, Noah"): A MYSTERY PLAY
I. Wicked Prelude
VII. The Flood / Te Deum (The Little Death Raindrops Keep Falling Mainly in Mesopotamia)
IX. Rainbow / Te Deum / Postlude
4. BABEL
I. And the whole earth
II. Behold, they are one
III. And the Lord scattered them
5. ABRAHAM AND ISAAC
II. The Separation
IV. The Covenant / V. The Slave Girl  
VI. The Circumcision
[LOT IN LIFE]
VII. The Plea (Lottery)  
VIII. The Destruction (Lotsa Luck /  Parking Lot's Wife /  Lotherio)
IX. The Deception  
X. The Birth / The Banishment
XI. The Sacrifice / XII. The Burial / XIII. The Wife / XIV. The Death  
6. ISRAEL IN TROUBLE
 I. If It Is Thus
III. Eyes Dim  IV. Fly Away  
V. Well, Well, Well, Well, Well
VI. Shouldn't Work for Nothing  
VII. How To Depart  
VIII. On His Way  IX. One Day Dinah  X. If It Is Thus
 7. AMAZING JOSEPH I. I Had a Dream
 II. Meanwhile, Judah  
III. Now the Ishmaelites (Potiphar's Wife)
 V. Pharaoh Had a Dream  
VII. Take My Youngest Son
 VIII. I Am Joseph  
IX. Now I Can Die  

[PART II  - EXODUS-JUDGES
8. MOSES AND AARON
EXODUS / LEVITICUS
(13 Letters and a Postlude)
 I. Recitative - "And There Arose"
II. Barcarolle - "Woman Conceived"
III. Battle - "And He Spied"
V. Duet - "What Is In Your Hand?"
VI. Trio - "Let My People"
VII. Nine-Plague Twelve-Tone Passacaglia-Quodlibet - "River Is Blood"
IX. Storm/Tempest - "At Midnight" (The Tenth Plague)
X. Caccia/Tableau - "And the People Fled" (The Parting of the Red Sea)
XI. Duet and Chorus - "Sing to the Lord / Bitter Water" (Songs of Moses and Miriam)
XII. Quartet - "Thou Shalt" (The Ten Commandments)
XIII. Bacchanale - "This Gold Image" (The Golden Calf)
XVI. Postlude - "Be Gone"
NUMBERS / DEUTERONOMY (7 Letters)
XVII. Ritournello - "Would That We Had Died"
XVIII. Interlude - "How Long" (Wander in the Wilderness)
XIX. Procession - "Let Us Pass" (Balaam's Ass)
XX. Chorus - "There Shall a Star"
9. SAMSON AND DELILAH (THE FRANK JUDGES)
Scene 1 - Start I. Digits (Adonibezek)
III. Disemblance (Ehud and Eglon)
IV. Deborah
VI. Downfall (Abimelech)
VII. Daughter (Jeptha) Scene 2 - Samson
VIII. Death (The Lion)
IX. Defeat (The Ass's Jaw)
X. Delilah
XI. Dagon Scene 3 - Stop
XIII. Disunity (The Levite's Concubine)]



Performances: March 5-7, 12-14, 2010
San Francisco Cabaret Opera / Goat Hall Productions
Community Music Center, San Francisco, CA