Anaïs Maviel & The Rhythm Method: listen to the rain

Composer and vocalist Anaïs Maviel returns with composer-performer ensemble The Rhythm Method to present the world premiere of listen to the rain. Approaching listening as performative and performance as meditative, listen to the rain’s instrumentation weaves Afrocentric with Eurocentric music traditions, written and oral. Grounded in the study of the Asian theories of the five elements—rather, dynamic agents—and of the bagua, the music explores their generative cycles in the body in interdependency with the earth and cosmos, as a structural base. The piece invites our focus on what is transforming our environment, whether we call it nature—rainforests turning water into oxygen—or culture—a virus taking over an entire species, yet all revealing the stakes of in and outward Relation.

listen to the rain is an invitation to recognize water as both one and plural, both inside and outside of ourselves, taking many forms and emanating different temporalities. Listening to the rain means letting our sense of hearing tell us about the multi-dimensionality of water, how hearing is a topography, and how connected the sense of hearing is with the other senses. In Chinese energetics–which inspire the methodology of this work–the five elements are dynamic agents connected to the human senses, and the sense of hearing corresponds to water.— Anaïs Maviel, I Care If You Listen

Anaïs Maviel – composition, n’goni, voice (supported by an ACF Create award)
Leah Asher – violin, voice
Marina Kifferstein – violin, voice
Carrie Frey – viola, voice
Meaghan Burke – cello, voice

Date & Time: Saturday, June 19, 2021 at 7 PM CT | 8 PM ET

Get tickets here.

listen to the rain by Anaïs Maviel was made possible by a grant from the American Composers Forum with funds provided by the Jerome Foundation.