Great Noise Ensemble addresses religious doubt with world premiere of Sacred Cows on Oct 19

Oct. 8, 2012 - PRLog -- Great Noise Ensemble’s (GNE) Artistic Director and composer Armando Bayolo began reading scholarship on Jesus Christ when he completed his doctoral studies in 2001. This resulted in the erosion of his faith and a new work for Great Noise Ensemble (GNE). Sacred Cows, which Bayolo describes as a delayed reaction to his spiritual journey, receives its world premiere on GNE’s second performance of the season, Irreverence, at the Atlas Performing Arts Center on October 19, 2012 at 8:00 pm.

Free thinkers and blasphemers
In Sacred Cows, Bayolo sets the words of Galileo, Nietzsche and Christopher Hitchens to catchy, quasi-pop tunes. He says, “Each song deals with the doubt and ills of unquestioning spirituality.The highlight of the piece is the setting for words based on Frank Zappa’s final interview for Playboy, in which he sums up Christianity as a religion where God wants you to stay dumb.”

“I wrote this piece because I had to get it out of me.”
Bayolo considers Sacred Cows different than any his previous compositions. He says, “I had to say these things, especially since the proportion of music that questions religion to religious music is lopsided.” Beyond the significance of its message, Sacred Cows marks the shift in Bayolo’s style of composition. “A lot of my music since Sacred Cows has embraced a more ironic, sometimes sardonic attitude and embraced more popular models as inspiration.”

Sacred Cows will be premiered at the Atlas Performing Art Center’s Lang Theater, in the heart of D.C.’s H Street Arts District.

Tickets are $25 General and $15 Students with I.D., and are available though the Atlas Performing Arts Center website and at the box office (202.399.7993)

For more information about the program:
www.greatnoiseensemble.com/

For tickets:
bit.ly/GNEIrreverenceAtAtlas

Great Noise Ensemble was born in 2005 through a listing placed on Craigslist.org by composer and conductor Armando Bayolo. Seven area musicians united by their passion for new music answered, and from this core group the ensemble has grown into the twenty instrumentalists and two singers which now comprise its core membership. Since its first concert in January 2006, Great Noise Ensemble has become one of the most important ensembles in the District of Columbia’s burgeoning new music scene, winning The Washington Area Music Association’s 2007 “WAMMIE” Award for Best Chamber Ensemble and presenting concerts in venues ranging from intimate community concert spaces like the Patricia M. Sitar Center to prestigious locales such as the National Gallery of Art, the Hirshhorn Gallery and Sculpture Garden and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts