EXITMUSIC 1003
Written, arranged and produced by
Mikel Rouse
EXITMUSIC RECORDINGS
Funding represents a natural progression in my interest of not only combining music with rich media interaction, but controlling these varied elements myself from a single source: that of a completely contained media and rehearsal studio environment. In 1849 the term Gesamtkunstwerk or “total artwork” was used to describe Wagner’s approach to opera. While my work has been moving in this same “self” direction beginning with my opera trilogy, current technology and my own expertise in music composition, studio recording, film and media management allow Funding to fully realize this goal.
Funding follows five characters, Vivian, Roe, JJ, Ines and a mysterious French man through a 20 year musical memory of New York City. As people and places in their lives drift away, visual impressions meld with sound and narrative stories to reveal a complex yet moving tableau. As the characters recall their own personal histories, conflicting images reveal their past, present and future. Symbols of corporate America and its not so quiet invasion in our lives are distorted and abstracted into poetic blow ups that correspond to the ever shifting pulsations of the soundtrack. This unique juxtaposition of music, lyrics, images and narrative might rightly be called Opera Verite.
01. Cycle 1
02. New York City, 1974
03. New York City, 1982
04. Cycle 2
05. Cycle 3
06. New York City, 1994
07. New York City, 2000
08. Cycle 4
