countertenor | composer | conductor | multi-instrumentalist | hurdy gurdy
New Music & Early Music
In the video, I was making some “Hurly Burly” and playing some “Medievel chance” on the Hurdy Gurdy. I was improvising music by the medieval composer Machaut and Baroque Composer Chedeville.
Wise Blood Opera
The Soap Factory, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Exhibition after the novel by Flannery O’conner. Music and Libretto by Anthony Gatto.
SCENE 6: Onnie Jay Holy (42:32)
SCENE10: Onnie Jay Holy returns with The True Prophet with some hurdy gurdy action (1:10:07)
Opera performed in an installation sculpture in a museum where the audience followed the actors around inside the set.
“Making of Americans”
https://open.spotify.com/track/60Qz5Nfv7zApHXexVxggY1
New Music multi-media Opera
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis MN and MIT Boston Mass. Music and Libretto by Anthony Gatto. Directed by Jay Schieb. Text by Gertrude Stein.
In Te Domine Speravi by Josquin Des Pres (d. 1521)
All parts sung by David lee Echelard
Video “Suburban Decay” by Aaron Valdez
“Tricky Pan”
Composed by Mary Jane Leach for David Lee Echelard (singer of all parts).
For countertenor solo and eight taped tenor/countertenors that are an accompaniment to the solo. Premiered at Roulette NYC.
The Erlkonig
Composed by Jeffrey Brooks
Composed for countertenor David Lee Echelard and the University of Minnesota Percussion Ensemble directed by Fernando Meza. The text for The Erlkonig is loosely based on the 1782 poem by Goethe as set by Franz Schubert. In the story, a young child is being lured by a malevolent ghost/king to his kingdom of the dead. The child's father rides maniacally on horseback with the child in his arms seeking help. Only the child hears the sound of the Erlkonig's tempting words. In this version for six percussion and tenor, the rhythm of the horse's hoofs hooves is hyper-driven into a controlled frenzy of phasing rhythmic cells and complex sticking patterns. A text collage of Erlkonig-related stories and biblical passages are freely interspersed in this through-composed, single movement song.
Early Music
Composed by Jeffrey Brooks
Early Music, for singer and six prerecorded vocal parts, came out of the composer's interest in composition of the 13th and 14th centuries. It was written for countertenor David Lee Echelard and takes advantage of his powerful high soprano range. Sections composed using theoretical rhythmic modes of the 13th century alternate with sections of more florid passages that are partially improvised.
BodyCartography Dance Project
The Main Channel of the Mississippi River in Winona, Minnesota
Performers: David Echelard and Megan Flood
Camera/editors/direction: Olive Bieringa, Otto Ramstad
A dance video work shot in the midst of the Mississippi river in Winona on a rocky outcrop and on a disused railway bridge. This work is part of Moving Image: Minnesota, a series of dance video works and site-based performances shot and shown across the state.
David Lee Playing a Medieval Jam