With tunes from England, France, Ireland, Northumberland, New England, and Bassanda, as well as original choreographies and social dances, the upcoming Tech Folk Orchestra concert will feature the TTU Historical Performance Ensemble and Caprock English Bagpipe Consort, and the design and costume assistance of Professor Mallory Prucha’s students from the School of Theatre and Dance.
This concert inaugurates a NEW collaboration with students from the School of Theatre and Dances new Cosplay Minor led by Professor Mallory Prucha. Music and Theatre and Dance students work together to create unique designs and personae that situate the players, singers, and dancers within the Mysterious Multiverse of Bassanda. You can see the efforts of these students come to life on Wednesday, October 23 at 8PM in Hemmle Recital Hall. The concert is free and open to the public. Watch the video below to learn more about the exciting collaboration.
Video Credit: Anna Kim
About Bassanda and the Eternal Stalwarts Orchestra: Symphonic Folk from a Lost World
By Dr. Christopher J. Smith
Major inspiration for the Eternal Stalwarts Orchestra, the alter ego of the Tech Folk Orchestra, comes from the fictional country of “Bassanda”; a creation of VMC partners Chipper Thompson and Roger Landes. We imagined the fictional “Eternal Stalwarts Orchestra”; in which, as part of an “alternate-history” frame, its alleged that a Soviet satellites official state folkloric ensemble (the “Bassanda National Radio Orchestra”) mutates, after the fall of Communism, into a free-lance ensemble engaged in a Never-Ending Tour. Performing “Symphonic Folk from a Lost World,” the BNRO/ESO has thus been heard in many permutations, including the “Classic 1952 Band”; the “1962 ‘Beatnik Band”; the “1965 Newport Folk Festival Band”; the “1885 Victorian “Steampunk” Band”; the post-apocalyptic “Great Southwestern ‘Sand Pirates Band”; the “1912 New Orleans Creole “Voodoo” Band”; the “1928 ‘Carnivale Incognito Band”; the “1934 Intergalactic Pandemic Popular Front Band”; the “1936 International Brigade Libertarias Band,” the “1942 ‘Casablanca Band,” the “1948 Berlin Airlift Band”—and, now, the c1950 “Babylon Ragamuffin Band.”
In Europe and the Americas, the post-World War II period of the late 1940s was a period of social, economic, and geopolitical upheaval. Although the Allies had “won” the conflict and defeated the Axis, Europe itself and much of East Asia were still reeling from the destruction of infrastructure, government, and—most tragically—millions of lives. Even beyond the military losses, the horrors of the Holocaust and of nuclear warfare triggered a massive reconsideration of much of what had passed for “normal” in the pre-War era. There were strikes and food shortages in France and England, extensive poverty in Germany and Eastern Europe, and a mood of only very uneasy “victory” in the USA. In the States, that unease—regarding shifts in class, gender, race, and economic expectations—played out in both material prosperity, with new suburbs and factories going up seemingly overnight, and also psychological distress, with the surface optimism of radio and live-TV “situation comedies” concealing darker undercurrents of sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and racism. In Hollywood, where the members of the BNRO had been crucial backstage and soundstage contributors to wartime classic films (the so-called “1942 Casablanca Band”), and in Berlin, where a nucleus of players later (1947) relocated on board the electromagnetic, oscillating screw-retrofitted C-47 plane called Le Oiseaux Vert (The Big Green Bird), disappearing into the city of the “Berlin Air Lift” as nightclub musicians and denazification operatives, a literally darker aesthetic prevailed, especially in the cinematic genre fittingly called “film noir.” In these movies, men and women were tormented by traumatic memories, driven by anger and greed, and subject to the shadowy whims of unknown societal forces. To the Bassandans, who had experienced similar social dynamics during the long twilight of first Tsarist and then Soviet dictatorships, such dark-tinged pessimism was to be recognized and resisted. Parody, disguise, and dark humor thus formed part of the arsenal of the “Babylon Berlin Ragamuffin Band,” whose clownish or nightmarish presentation obscured but did not deter their fierce commitment to human rights.
If you are interested in participating in one of the VMCs community-facing ensembles or partners (Historical Performance Music Ensemble, Balkan Ensemble, Eternal Stalwarts, and/or Caprock English Bagpipe Consort), feel free to contact their respective directors. Auditions typically occur in the first weeks of each academic semester.
The Tech Folk Orchestra websites: http://www.eternalstalwartsorchestra.org
VMC can be found on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube as "vernacularmusiccenter" and #notyourclassicalorchestra