tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57955402024-03-05T14:34:41.799-05:00music is free nowWebsite of composer, lyricist and playwright César Alvarez.Césarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13281606467556897332noreply@blogger.comBlogger202125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5795540.post-15093333150815597282020-06-29T12:11:00.000-04:002020-06-29T12:11:19.451-04:00For up to date music, and information about César Alvarez please visit cesaralvarez.net
This site is no longer active.
Césarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13281606467556897332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5795540.post-70777371413707074562017-10-26T11:53:00.000-04:002017-10-26T12:00:44.936-04:00César Alvarez and Sarah Benson talk FUTURITY on NPR (The Leonard Lopate Show)
photo credit: Ben Arons courtesy of Soho Rep/Ars Nova
Césarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13281606467556897332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5795540.post-77006134643106309382017-09-26T22:23:00.000-04:002017-11-13T14:33:40.091-05:00Working in the Theatre: PolyphoneThe American Theater Wing made a mini-documentary about Polyphone, which is a festival for new musicals I founded with Joanna Settle in 2015 at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
Watch on Vimeo
Watch on YouTubeCésarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13281606467556897332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5795540.post-48876659042487315472017-09-26T16:32:00.001-04:002017-11-13T14:36:19.890-05:00Musical Theatre of the FutureIn February 2017 I went to Norway to talk to experimental LARP designers about making a participatory space musical. I got to share a lot of my beliefs about musicals, participatory theater and transforming the civic sphere with art. You can watch:
Watch it on YouTube
Also check out Lizzie Stark's primer on Nordic Larp HERE.Césarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13281606467556897332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5795540.post-89827359308384646992017-03-09T11:41:00.002-05:002017-03-09T11:41:55.989-05:00The Skin of Our Teeth at Theatre for a New Audience
Eric Farber and Fred Epstein | Photo by Henry Grossman
Photo by Henry Grossman
Photo by Henry Grossman
I wrote original music including 4 songs for TFANA's production of The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder. This play summons the eternal story of how humans endure total catastrophe. After working on it for months I feel like I finally arrived at its key insight: that our Césarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13281606467556897332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5795540.post-9611961935076702422017-03-09T10:38:00.000-05:002017-03-09T10:38:11.115-05:00NOISE
Jenna Rush | Photo by Eric Wolfe
Photo by Eric Wolfe
Photo by Eric Wolfe
NOISE was inspired by a little piece of critical theory, which proposes that music, as the organization of noise, was the earliest expression of civilization. And if music precedes all forms of political economy, it follows that we should be able to make a musical which designs a new and better society. Right?Césarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13281606467556897332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5795540.post-738889535006015362016-08-19T16:01:00.001-04:002016-09-20T11:07:11.992-04:00The Elementary Spacetime Show
photo by Eric Wolfe
“The universe doesn’t care if you live. It just doesn’t want you to die as the result of a false impression."
The Elementary Spacetime Show
Music, Book and Lyrics by César Alvarez
Directed by Andrew Neisler
Choreography by Sonya Tayeh and Ben Hobbs
September 10-24, 2016
Co-presented by The University of the Arts and FringeArts
TICKETS AND INFO HERE
REVIEWS:
TheCésarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13281606467556897332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5795540.post-83118421213723706702015-11-24T15:14:00.000-05:002016-07-27T12:15:52.832-04:00FUTURITY
Sometimes you come up with an idea, and you work on it for eight years. And a bunch of wonderful people start to believe in you, and help you, and it grows and grows and grows. And you see it slowly turn into the thing that you always wanted it to be. It is an incredible feeling. When you finally see it fully-formed it makes all the heartaches, stomach aches, and difficulties you Césarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13281606467556897332noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5795540.post-11220944774266601422015-03-12T21:42:00.000-04:002015-03-12T21:43:52.693-04:00Washeteria
This is a song from my episode of Washeteria:
A site specific, immersive theater piece for children. Louisa Thompson
designed a fantastical laundromat inside an former auto parts store
in Brooklyn. I wrote a mini-musical for the piece. My episode (Directed by the luminous Annie Tippe) is called Consuela and the Great Genie of The Laundry Bag. It's about a woman trapped inside a Césarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13281606467556897332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5795540.post-13308444619621729022014-10-14T17:27:00.000-04:002014-10-14T17:29:10.321-04:00Ursula K Le Guin on Science Fiction
"Truth is a matter of the imagination" - Ursula K Le Guin
Image Credit - The Left Hand of Darkness by David Lane
I recently read Ursula K Le Guin's legendary novel The Left Hand of Darkness. In the introduction she lays out a really compelling meditation on the role of science fiction in culture. As we are ever more altered by our technology, it bears repeating that the Césarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13281606467556897332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5795540.post-64774833430590152822014-09-26T02:10:00.000-04:002017-11-13T14:39:07.892-05:00The Universe is a Small Hat - BABYCASTLES RESIDENCY
The Universe is a Small Hat is a multiplayer immersive musical that tells the story of a space colony leaving earth in order to devise a more rational society. I've been developing this piece for two years now, and it isn't quite like anything I've ever created or experienced. Part game, part performance, part social experiment, part Utopian concept album, part party. We can't make the piece Césarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13281606467556897332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5795540.post-42483524887529389302014-09-26T01:42:00.000-04:002014-09-26T01:43:30.156-04:00An Octoroon
From left, Chris Myers, Danny Wolohan and Amber Gray. Credit Pavel Antonov
Composing for Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' An Octoroon at Soho Rep this past spring was one of the most exhilarating artistic experiences of my life. The song I wrote for the end was meant to be a moment of healing or reflection after the intense discomfort and insane melodrama that the play intentionally Césarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13281606467556897332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5795540.post-88302016679664977922013-07-16T19:08:00.004-04:002014-09-26T02:10:57.627-04:00The Universe is a Small Hat - 1st Play TestEngineering meaningful participatory theater.
Photos by Nora Mericicki from the Berkeley Rep Ground Floor workshop/playtest June 21, 2013.
The Witness Training. Safiya Fredericks (background) as The Founder and audience member/colonist Melissa Nigro
During my time in The Civilians R and D Group and the Berkeley Rep Ground Floor Program I have been studying how to turn the Césarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13281606467556897332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5795540.post-71133005573945117642013-05-14T23:34:00.001-04:002013-05-15T10:22:11.166-04:00Natasha, Pierre and The Great Comet of 181214 Reasons I Love Dave Malloy's Opera based on War and Peace.
Phillipa Soo as Natasha in NATASHA PIERRE AND THE GREAT COMET OF 1812, Photo By Chad Batka
You get perogies and vodka.
Dave uses bass clarinet, english
horn, and gut rumbling club music all in the same piece.
One scene inside of the opera is a hilarious parody of an opera.
A bunch of the actors, and almost all of the Césarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13281606467556897332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5795540.post-19827129954757554782013-04-01T13:05:00.001-04:002013-04-01T13:05:23.304-04:00It's Better With a Band
The Lisps and I are featured in the April 2013 cover story of American Theatre Magazine. The article, by Rob Weinert-Kendt, offers some nuanced insight into the emerging musical. Here's an excerpt:
It’s a funny thing, what’s happened to the word “musical.” Like “novel,” this simple adjective has grown into a giant noun encompassing an entire art form. But even as the term has inflated, Césarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13281606467556897332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5795540.post-57817892129855959862013-02-03T15:24:00.001-05:002013-05-14T23:15:43.170-04:00The Good Person of Szechwan
It's been an absolute revelation working with the cast and creative team on this show. I wrote 7 songs for the production and the other members of the Lisps will be on stage rocking every night.
Here's a demo/download of one of my songs from the show:
La MaMa presents the Foundry Theatre production of
Bertolt Brecht's The Good Person of Szechwan.
Directed by Lear Césarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13281606467556897332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5795540.post-84214097087432422642012-09-23T16:50:00.000-04:002013-05-14T23:16:06.244-04:00Album Release
Image by Emily Orling
After years of sweat, love, heartburn and emotional upheaval we've finally carved this joyful and unwieldy beast onto actual vinyl. Come out and enjoy heaps of recriminating banter and cacophonous merriment as we tell you the unlikely story of a Civil War soldier trying to save the world with a steam powered super brain. We are even going to cart out some of theCésarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13281606467556897332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5795540.post-20165982643162267802012-05-24T15:35:00.000-04:002012-05-24T15:35:13.134-04:00Ancient Music for the FutureHere are 3 videos that have been hacking my own thoughts about music. All of them have a distinctive non-western approach to melody, harmony and rhythm, and they are each incredibly catchy. My jazz training has given me a feeling that chord changes are "the bones" of a song, but the more I look outside of western music the more I realize how melodic and rhythmic exploration inside of more static Césarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13281606467556897332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5795540.post-64537702991441249202012-02-14T22:16:00.000-05:002012-02-14T22:16:34.915-05:00World Premiere
Tickets and show times HERE
Césarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13281606467556897332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5795540.post-68295664097241915142011-12-03T10:10:00.001-05:002013-05-14T23:18:08.731-04:00In Defense of The Musical
Hedwig Illustration by Alex Kittle
"It is nonsense to say what a musical should or should not be. It should be anything it wants to be, and if you don't like it you don't have to go to it. There is only one absolutely indispensable element that a musical must have. It must have music. And there is only one thing that it has to be – it has to be good."
- Oscar Hammerstein II*
Césarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13281606467556897332noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5795540.post-49989406647704401532011-12-01T16:30:00.000-05:002011-12-04T13:38:42.247-05:0027 Cast Albums, Six Words Each
I listened to all of these cast albums in about a month. Here's a 6-word observation about each one.
1. Sweeney Todd - (Angela Lansbury, Len Cariou) - This musical is a masterpiece. Period.
2. Sweeney Todd - (Michael Cerveris, Patti LuPone) - Stripping it down is often best.
3. Urinetown - Songs should approach narrative more obliquely.
4. Avenue Q - The most obvious things are Césarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13281606467556897332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5795540.post-23688669997840915662011-11-28T14:10:00.001-05:002013-05-14T23:20:13.548-04:00This Machine Creates Peace
FUTURITY at HERE by Sam Hough
Dear Friends, Family, and Readers,
Since 2007 I've been working on a musical called FUTURITY. Some of you have seen it and many of you have heard me yammering on about it. In a few months it will World Premiere and run for 5 weeks at American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, MA. This is a HUMUNGOUS deal for me, my band, and everyone that's been working on the Césarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13281606467556897332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5795540.post-51866645388769961642011-11-13T15:23:00.001-05:002011-11-19T10:38:44.668-05:00Ontology of vibration: economics, music and number
Photo Cred
This is a podcast by Marcus Schmickler
"Is it possible to approach developments in music by its relationships with money? Can we gain insight into societies by means of their relationship to music? Music serves as a mirror, as a prophecy for society because it reflects developments faster than anything that materializes.
There is an obvious simultaneity between music and Césarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13281606467556897332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5795540.post-20435222119152499742011-11-11T13:52:00.001-05:002013-05-14T23:18:27.809-04:00List of Sci-Fi Musicals, Operas and Plays
photo of Via Galactica by John Michael Cox
Musicals:
Rocky Horror Show by Richard O'Brien (1972)
Via Galactica by Christopher Gore, Judith Ross and Galt MacDermot (1972)
Time by Dave Clark, David Soames, Jeff Daniels, and David Pomeranz (1986)
Starmites by Barry Keating and Stuart Ross (1987)
Return to the Forbidden Planet by Bob Carlton (1989)
Metropolis by Joe Brooks and Césarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13281606467556897332noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5795540.post-32545432604175545192011-10-31T17:26:00.000-04:002015-06-03T15:42:55.092-04:00An Alternative Pedagogy for the 21st Century Musician
Student group - Fara Enclave (photo by César Alvarez)
In 2008 I was asked to teach a single course in the Music Tech division of the Creative Arts and Technology Department at Bloomfield College called "Digital Audio Engineering 1." I approached the class as a composer, producer and sound artist assuming that most of my students would be primarily interested in figuring out the Césarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13281606467556897332noreply@blogger.com3