KILTER, ANDROMEDA ANARCHIA, GROWLERS CHOIR and SEVEN)SUNS To Release Jazz Metal Opera La Suspendida!
- Jason Hesley
- Jan 20, 2024
- 2 min read
KILTER, ANDROMEDA ANARCHIA, GROWLERS CHOIR and SEVEN)SUNS are preparing to release in full their complete experimental and collaborative opera, La Suspendida on March 15th, 2024, via Silent Pendulum Records. La Suspendida is a monodrama that explores the liminal space between life and death where the protagonist, Maria Elena Milagros, finds herself suspended after passing away. The opera features a combination of jazz, new music, metal, and contemporary music, and it tells the story of Maria Elena's quest for self-discovery and empowerment through a series of encounters with the dead. Late 2023 saw KITLER and ANDROMEDA ANARCHIA provide a glimpse of the opera contained with the EP, The Suspended Woman.
Librettist WILLIAM BERGER comments on La Suspendida:
"La Suspendida is an opera in jazz and metal. In telling its story of a relationship that extends beyond death, it extends what we mean by opera, jazz, and metal, even while honoring and reveling in those traditions.
The drama is based on a notorious incident in history: a doctor whose obsession with a beautiful young patient of his was so great that he kept her body as his lover after her untimely death. The originality of La Suspendida is in seeing this gruesome tale from a more sympathetic point of view – it is told from the perspective of the woman, María Elena, and dares to speculate on her journey after death not as a victim but as an expression of self-determination. What if María Elena wanted it all this way?
To explore this, the opera is composed for a remarkable ensemble [...] versed in classical and non-traditional genres. The emerging project is proving to be a symbiotic composite of traditional and trailblazing that is traversing linguistic, artistic, political, and even existential boundaries."
Led by progressive jazz metal trio KILTER's bassist Laurent David, La Suspendida is a collaboration between musicians and artists, including KILTER's own Kenny Grohowski (IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT), and Ed Rosenberg III, ANDROMEDA ANARCHIA (soprano), the string quartet SEVEN)SUNS, and the GROWLERS CHOIR (comprised of metal vocalists), as well as the librettist WILL BERGER. The musicality of the opera traverses multiple realms ranging from the atonal melodies of new music to the aggressive rhythms of metal.
The video for the first single “Laudes Mortuorum and Roll Call Of The Newly Dead” premiered at Ghost Cult Magazine and can be watched here: https://ghostcultmag.com/exclusive-video-premiere-la-suspendia-shares-a-music-video-for-laudes-mortuorum-and-roll-call-of-the-newly-dead
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