Alicia Jo Rabins

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Alicia Jo Rabins’s A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff will be an experimental rock opera about the spiritual implications of the current financial crisis, considering the figure of Bernard Madoff and the system which allowed him to function through the lens of ancient Jewish texts about financial ethics, ecology and cycles.

Drawing on aspects of Greek tragedies and the contemporary operas of Golijov, Glass and Adams, Alicia will consider Madoff as a larger-than-life figure who reflects our society’s desire for straight lines and eternal upward progress. A three-person chorus will alternately embody oracular voices/ancient texts about financial ethics, and (fictionalized) modern individuals affected by or involved with Madoff, from SEC employees to investors. The melodic vocabulary will derive partly from Yom Kippur liturgy, especially the Kaddish, and instrumentalists will use looping and delay pedals to layer and abstract these traditional melodies, investigating musically the ideas of cycles, aggregation, and attrition. The libretto will draw from halachic, aggadic and kabbalistic texts, quotes from Madoff and his victims, and the arcane language of the stock market.

Poet, composer, and classically trained violinist Alicia Jo Rabins weaves her many talents together to create multi-layered work investigating the intersection of spirituality, tradition and contemporary experience, most recently in her song cycle Girls in Trouble, which tells stories from the perspective of marginalized female figures in the Torah. A classically trained violinist since the age of three, Alicia fell in love with old-time fiddle tunes and klezmer music, playing on the street, touring with various young neo-folk bands, and in 2004 joining the groundbreaking folk-punk group Golem, which reinterprets traditional Gypsy and klezmer tunes with a rock edge. In 2009 she was selected by the US State Department as a musical ambassador for the United States as a violinist, singer, and teaching artist, and performed in Nicaragua, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala as the bandleader of the Hoppin’ John String Band. Along with her musical career Alicia is also a poet, scholar and teacher of Jewish studies, with poems in publications such as Ploughshares, Boston Review, 6 x 6 and Court Green, a MFA in poetry from Warren Wilson College, scholarships from Bread Loaf Writers Conference and a 2009 Workspace Grant from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and a MA in Jewish Women’s Studies from the Jewish Theological Seminary.

Contact Info

aliciajo@gmail.com
www.aliciajo.com
www.girlsintroublemusic.com
www.myspace.com/girlsintroublemusic