artist profile: Beth Fleenor

The idea for this opera came to me around Easter time a few years ago when I read an erroneous Facebook post asserting that the goddess Ishtar was the source of the original Easter celebrations. A quick look at Wikipedia showed me that it's more likely the German goddess Oester who lends her name to the Christian holiday - but that was not before I read the Wiki article on Ishtar and just knew that she needed her own opera. The first person who jumped into my mind to create this with is the amazing Beth Fleenor.

One of the things that is so great about our group is the depth of collaborative interweavings that connect us. I've recorded an album with Beth in a dark, wet bunker; I learned about conduction alongside her with the late, great Butch Morris; I've loved every free improvisation we've come up with together; and we've had countless long conversations that cover every aspect of artistic life from the practical to the sublime. And that's just with me. Beth has deep musical relationships with everyone in the ensemble.

But this is supposed to be about Beth, and why she just has to be the one person in the world to depict Ishtar's rage about humanity's deep violations. If any singer can summon up a goddess-like fury and put it over the top, it is Beth. From her website, we learn the following: "Composer, clarinetist, and raucous vocal percussionist Beth Fleenor harbors a strong love for variety and all sonic manipulation, moving freely through genres such as jazz, rock, classical, contemporary chamber, Slavic & American folk, metal, musique concrete, ambient, noise & pop. Her work has been heard internationally from 100,000 seat festivals, maximum-security prisons, rural bars, art galleries, bunkers, sidewalks, sacred spaces, and some of the most prestigious concert halls, museums, clubs and theaters in the country - in live music, recording, theater, dance, installation, and film. Believing that "art is the discipline of being," Fleenor uses sound to open the channels of communication between and within individuals and environments."

She has collaborated for 10 years (along with dancer/violinist Paris Hurley) in the innovative ensemble Double Yoko, has recently returned from a monthlong residency at the Millay Colony in Austerlitz, NY, where she completed a number of etudes for her Blindfold Ensemble (free improvisation while blindfolded - you must go hear this) among other projects, and can be heard/witnessed in the eponymous Crystal Beth and the Boom Boom Band - here's Steve Kennedy-Williams' recording from her recent Earshot Jazz show at the Barboza - BOOM! That language is called Bethnic.

I could never ask for a more awesome musical collaborator/friend than Beth. And she helps everyone in Seattle. She alone is a reason to come to the opera. Happy listening!!