Alan Huckleberry, piano

November 10, 7:30pm - 9:00pm
Mānoa Campus, Orvis Auditorium

A multi-media presentation of THE PEOPLE UNITED WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED, 36 Variations on ¡El Pueblo Unido Jamás Será Vencido! by Frederic Rzewski (b.1938)

Pianist Alan Huckleberry from the University of Iowa is presenting a 10 city tour, performing Frederic Rzewski’s The People United Will Never Be Defeated. The variation set of epic proportions (over one hour in length) and epic difficulty, has found new meaning in today’s political and social environment in the USA.

Alan Huckleberry:

“A few years ago I performed this piece with 5 other pianists, mostly my students, each of us tackling one set of 6 variations. We added a visual element to the performance by projecting images having to do with human rights. Each set had a specific topic: people (MLK, Malala, Mother Teresa, etc.) historical events, social justice, worker’s rights, etc. Each variation was associated with a specific image. When the variations came back throughout the piece, so did the images. That way the audience could also visually follow the compositional structure, while contemplating the underlying message.

"I will be performing it on my own, again using images, only this time having to do with events in the US in the past three years. Topics will include women’s rights (#metoo), Black Lives Matter, our government, social media, and people. Eventually I intend to create a DVD recording of it, only then using news footage instead of still images. As mentioned above, before the Coda is an optional improvisation. As I tour around the country, I will have local artists join me on stage to do the improvisation in their own style and language. These performances will be video recorded, spliced together into a 10 minutes collage and inserted in the appropriate spot in the piece for the DVD. This is my quest to collect the united US American musical voice.”


Ticket Information
$14 / $10

Event Sponsor
MUSIC, Mānoa Campus

More Information
(808) 956-8742, uhmmusic@hawaii.edu, https://manoa.hawaii.edu/music/events

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