Also on the program is a performance of CAROLYN CHEN’s Some Dragons for singing violinist performed by Batya Macadam-Somer above.

Both pieces performed in English with Spanish subtitles.

Performed LIVE at El Salon in San Ysidro, as part of THE FRONT ARTE CULTURA gallery’s annual DÍA INTERNACIONAL DE LA MUJER exhibition.

CONTRALTO stars Alexandra Brandon, Alyssa Green, Anna McCormick, Dreia Spies, Sarang Umarki, and Josie Zanfordino

“...imaginative, resourceful, witty, defiant...haven't been so deeply moved by a new piece in ages.”

- STEVE SMITH, NATIONAL SAWDUST

"Contralto" is a one-hour work for video, strings, and percussion that exists in between the spaces of experimental music and documentary. The piece features a cast of transgender women speaking, singing, and performing vocal exercises accompanied by a dense and varied musical score that includes a variety of conventional and "non-musical" approaches to sound-making.

When a transgender man begins taking testosterone it causes his vocal cords to thicken and his voice deepens and drops into the so-called "masculine range." It is not widely known, however, that trans women's voices are unaffected by higher levels of estrogen in the body. Being a woman with a "male voice" creates a variety of difficult situations for trans women including prolonged and intensified dysphoria and higher risk of harassment and violence due to possibly exposing someone as trans unintentionally.

"Contralto" - defined in musical terms as "the lowest female singing voice" - uses the sound of trans women's voices to explore transfeminine identity from the inside and examines the intimate and peculiar relationship between gender and sound.

INTERVIEWS WITH THE COMPOSERS

MEET THE ENSEMBLE

Click the images below to learn more about the artists.

This production is made possible by a grant from the UNLV College of Fine Arts.