Myra Melford's Snowy Egret

Galeano's 'Memoria del fuego' is a collage of fiction, travelogue, newspaper articles and letters, with which he creates his own Latin America. He re-writes and polishes up alternative creation myths. 'Snowy Egret' is a musical evocation of myths about the American continent. Duos, solos and counterpoint emphasise isolation, but simultaneously argue for an alternative way of life, in a community with shared values. Just like musical chords. As a musical extension of previous ensembles, 'Snowy Egret' polishes the mystique of Galeano's dream language to a high musical gloss. Re-imagined? For Melford this means multimedia, with butoh and video mixing, text declamation and graphic musical notation. Melford's music blends classical with blues piano, North-Indian harmonium, Frank Lloyd Wright's organic architecture, James Joyce, the paintings of Don Reich, Zen Buddhism and Rumi poems. Liberally drawing on a range of inspirational sources, her music keeps the listener on the edge of his seat. It's a contagiously emotional, deeply uplifting process. Melford's handbook is Cortázar's introspective, stream-of-consciousness counter-novel 'Rayuela', in which characters play with the reader's mind. Where traditional spelling and grammatical rules are bent, the reader is provided with an instruction sheet to help him navigate the chapters, the last of which are interchangeable.