In collaboration with Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, whose 2020-21 season features classical music performances set to artwork created by invited artists, Astra Huimeng Wang draws inspiration from Igor Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale, in making “To Have Still the Things You Had Before”.
The Soldier’s Tale was born in a time of turbulence. Despite its innovativeness, the piece was a financial failure due to the 1918 flu pandemic. Curiously resonating with our time, the music has a sharp, acerbic undertone with an intricate use of cross-rhythms and meter changes. In the final Triumphal March of the Devil, where the violin yields to the percussion, the devil appears in a magnificent scarlet costume and claims ultimate victory over the soldier who wanted it all, bringing the story to a Faustian end. To Have Still the Things You Had Before reimagines the clashes, conflicts, and juxtapositions in The Soldier’s Tale as a visual polarity between the delicacy of the scarlet velvet texture and the brutality of the numerous bullet holes varying in size and depth, reflecting on an increasingly polarizing reality we are living in today.
Tune in today at 6:30 PT to see the spectacular production come together https://www.laco.org/events/the-soldiers-tale/ live on Youtube.
Astra Huimeng Wang
Premiere Today: In collaboration with Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra
March 12, 2021
