ARTSaha!

"ARTSaha!" is Omaha's new music festival. Held in the late summer, it is an annual showcase of contemporary music and art that stresses interdisciplinary and collaborative projects. "ARTSaha!" is produced by ANALOG "arts ensemble", a non-profit global collective of artists.

History

"ARTSaha!" was established as a volunteer festival in 2004 by ANALOG. The first year featured a series of chamber music concerts with eclectic programs ranging from the Baroque to rock music. Highlights included a brass quintet version of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, a rare Morton Feldman film score, and a concert of guerrilla electronic music.

"ARTSaha! 2005" featured a production of Bach's "Musical Offering" where four ensembles performed the work simultaneously and the audience was able to create their own arrangement by moving between rooms. There were also outdoor performances of Alvin Lucier's "Chambers" in Omaha's Old Market, and Karlheinz Stockhausen's "From the Seven Days" on the Gene Leahy Mall. The festival also featured the meta-opera "Notes from the Next Dark Age"

"ARTSaha! 2006" highlighted the Samuel Beckett centenary with a program of several short plays, including "Quad", "Nacht und Träume", "Breath", "Come & Go", "Not I", "Rockaby" and "Act Without Words II". This was the first year of production funding for some events at the festival, such as the reworking of Jean-Philippe Rameau's "The Festivities of Hebe". Other events continued to be produced on a fringe basis such as a concert of electronic music in the Mallory Kountze Planetarium. 2006 also saw the establishment of a production partnership between ANALOG and the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

"ARTSaha! 2007" focused on Futurism with only the fourth US performance of George Antheil's original soundtrack for "Ballet Mécanique". The festival also featured a 24-hour performance of John Cage's "ASLSP", and the first Iron Composer Competition, where five student composers had five hours to complete a score for woodwind quintet based on a secret ingredient. The secret ingredient was the main motif to the theme song for the TV show "The Jetsons".

"ARTSaha! 2008" celebrated the 80th anniversary of Karlheinz Stockhausen's birth. ANALOG gave the US premieres of "Friday Greeting" and "Cosmic Pulses", the latter of which is the last piece of electronic music Stockhausen ever composed. The Iron Composer competition was won by Hermes Camacho, a composer from Colorado. The instrumentation was piano trio and the secret ingredient was Monet's "Impression, Sunrise". Guest artists included Stuart Gerber (Stockhausen's last percussionist), Monument Piano Trio, dung, and the Microscore Project. The festival program also included several selections from George Brecht's Water_Yam_(artist's_multiple).

Festival Artists

* [http://www.analogartsensemble.net ANALOG "arts ensemble"] - Producers and main performers at every festival.
* [http://www.bluebarn.org/index2.html The Blue Barn Theater's Witching Hour] - Performed Beckett plays in 2006.
* [http://juliechristensen.net/ Julie Christensen] - Painted a triptych during a 2005 festival concert.
* [http://www.mygiantrobot.com/ Jeff Boddy] - Designed 2006 & 2007 logos. Animated [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifpwNMiTjLA 2006 trailer] .

External links

* [http://www.artsaha.org "ARTSaha!"]
* [http://www.analogartsensemble.net ANALOG "arts ensemble"]
* [http://www.unomaha.edu The University of Nebraska at Omaha]