IPSA DIXIT was a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in music.
Ipse dixit /Ip-suh dik-sit/: noun (Latin). Literally "he, himself, said it." An uproven yet dogmatic statement which the speaker expects the listener to accept as valid without proof beyond the speaker's assumed expertise.
Ipsa dixit: "she, herself, said it . . ."
Ian Antonio (percussion), Kate Soper (voice, composer), Josh Modney (violin), Erin Lesser (flute)
"Comprehensively astounding .... a twenty-first century masterpiece .... a ninety-minute tour de force in which ideas assume sound and form. Call it philosophy-opera."
"Ambitious, ingeneous .... what she's doing is enacting the polarities out of which art emerges."
- Zachary Woolfe, The New York Times (full review)
"A dazzlingly varied six-part sequence of quartets and duets spanning a stylistic range best described as broad and eclectic, but never unapproachable, employing texts concerning matters of intellect and sentiment, cognition and persuasion, perception and awareness."
I: Poetics (excerpt)
Texts by Aristolte (abridged Soper) and Sophocles (from "Oedipus Rex")
II: Only the Words Themselves Mean What They Say (excerpt)
Text by Lydia Davis
III: Rhetoric (excerpt)
Text by Aristotle (abrdiged Soper) and Soper
IV: The Crito (excerpt)
Text by Robert Duncan and Plato (abridged Soper)
V: Metaphysics (excerpt)
Text by Aristotle, abridged/adapted Soper
VI: Cipher (excerpt)
Texts by Jenny Holzer, Wittgenstein, Pietro Bembo, Freud, Guido d'Arezzo, and Sarah Teasdale
All videos from live performance at EMPAC, 12.9.16
Directed by Ashley Tata
Lights by Anshuman Bhatia
Projections by Bradley Peterson
Costumes by Nina Vartanian