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NANOS OPERETTA
History and Mission Statement

Formed in 2001 by composers Ali Tabatabai, Craig Demel, Phillip Williams, Max Baloian, and Jason Ditzian, Nanos Operetta's mission is to take on the challenges of building artistic community while creating conceptual and collaborative works with dance, physical performance, and other music groups. Utilizing unconventional and culturally diverse instrumentation, the ensemble of composers incorporates elements of film music, ethnic music, modern chamber, avant-rock, and experimental music forms to create works for live performance and recording.

The current core ensemble consists of composer/libertist/vocalist/percussionst Tabatabai, composer/violinist Demel, composer/percussionist Williams, and newest member composer/bassist Liam Wilson (Dillinger Escape Plan).

Collaboration is one of the organization's main focuses, creating new works with a diverse selection of innovative and acclaimed artists from various disciplines. In 2004, Nanos Operetta received an Isadora Duncan Award (IZZIE) for Serei, their collaboration with butoh masters, Koichi & Hiroko Tamano and the Harupin-Ha Butoh Dance Theater. The same year, they created the critically acclaimed music and dance performance series 3 Drops of Blood, curated by Tabatabai. Over a period of two and a half years, the ten-installment quarterly series presented new works and collaborations by Nanos Operetta, along with choreographers Nancy Karp, Sara Shelton Mann, Janice Garrett, Ledoh and Alonzo King; composers Guy Klucevsek, Paul Dresher, Arnold Dreyblatt, Myra Melford, and Frank Pahl; dance companies KUNST-STOFF, inkBoat, and LINES Ballet; and music ensembles Rova Saxophone Quartet, Tabla Rasa, and Gamelan Sekar Jaya. In 2005, the ensemble was commissioned to compose the score for Persian Gardens, a film directed by renowned Iranian filmmaker Bahman Kiarostami. In 2007, Nanos Operetta collaborated with physical theater company inkBoat and director Ellen Sebastian Chang to create Our Breath is as Thin as a Hummingbird's Spine, an evening length multi-disciplinary opera. In 2008, the ensemble collaborated with German vocalist/conceptualist Blixa Bargeld (Einstürzende Neubaten, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds) and experimental dance theater company KUNST-STOFF on the international performance project The Execution of Precious Memories.

Composition is at the heart of Nanos Operetta's work, and over the last ten years, the ensemble has completed numerous full-length musical works, 'Til the Sun Dries Our Eyes, Beneath the Albaloo Tree, the Suicide Series, Sangue Sull'orlo an homage to composer Ennio Morricone, and is in the midst of developing its most ambitious compositional project to date, Tropic. In 2008, the ensemble was commissioned by the Kronos Quartet to compose two pieces for the famed string quartet and Korean vocalist/percussionist Dohee Lee. The same year the group collaborated on Ire Works, a studio project with mathcore icons Dillinger Escape Plan.

Nanos Operetta's collaborative compositions are written by the ensemble of composers through an extended process of creative development and examination. Germinal concepts and themes are identified by artistic director Tabatabai, and preliminary musical and narrative sketches are introduced to the ensemble. Using their respective primary instruments, the collaborative develops these initial elements, investigating melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, tonal, and aesthetic ideas, and creating the basis for each of the segments. Over a focused development period the composition's framework is decided upon, and emphasis is then given to finding new ways to interpret and voice the individual segments through the use of a wide array of traditional and unconventional instruments, found objects, and extended techniques and voicings. Instrumentation from the ensemble's diverse collection is selected, and the musicians choose various methods to play each instrument in both traditional and non-traditional ways, employing creative ways to allow each of the segments to find their own unique voice.

Articles about their work have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, SF Weekly, SF Bay Guardian, Voice of Dance, Bay Area Reporter, KQED Arts, InDANCE, SF Tribune, and SF Gate.

Nanos Operetta has received funding from the Multi-Arts Production Fund, the San Francisco Arts Commission, the American Composers Forum, the Argosy Foundation Music Fund, Meet the Composers, the Zellerbach Family Fund, the Goethe Institute, the Trust for Mutual Understanding, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and WESTAF.



Representative list of works


2008
  • The Execution of Precious Memories | Evening length collaboration with Blixa Bargeld and KUNST-STOFF | Project Artaud Theater | San Francisco
  • Kronos Quartet Commission for the string quartet and Dohee Lee
  • Ire Works | Nanos Operetta studio collaboration with Dillinger Escape Plan

2007
  • Our Breath is as Thin as a Hummingbird's Spine | Evening length collaboration with inkBoat and Nils Frykdahl (Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Faun Fables) | ODC Theater | San Francisco

2006
  • 3 Drops of Blood VIII | Nanos Operetta w/ Guy Klucevsek, Cyro Baptista, Shinichi Iova Koga & Cassie Terman, Serchmaa Byamba & Ulziisaikhan Lkhagvadorj, Chepikov String Quartet | Project Artaud Theater | San Francisco
  • 3 Drops of Blood IX | Nanos Operetta w/ Paul Dresher, Nancy Karp + Dancers, Koichi & Hiroko Tamano, Edmund Welles: The Bass Clarinet Quartet | Project Artaud Theater | San Francisco
  • 3 Drops of Blood X | Nanos Operetta w/ KUNST-STOFF, Sara Shelton Mann, Dohee Lee, Guest Artists from Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet | Project Artaud Theater | San Francisco
  • The Spoon on the Table | Collaboration w/ Koichi & Hiroko Tamano and Edmund Welles: The Bass Clarinet Quartet | Project Artaud Theater | San Francisco
  • Lulu | Collaboration w/ aerialist Abigail Munn | Project Artaud Theater | San Francisco
  • Persian Gardens | Live performance of score to Bahman Kiarostami's film | Asian Art Museum | San Francisco

2005
  • 3 Drops of Blood IV | Nanos Operetta w/ Janice Garrett & Dancers, Guy Klucevsek & Sandy Silva, Accordion Works, the Toids | Dance Mission Theater | San Francisco
  • 3 Drops of Blood V | Nanos Operetta w/ Stephen Pelton Dance Theater, Hyo-Shin Na, Tabla Rasa, Jennifer Wright Cook | Dance Mission Theater | San Francisco
  • 'Til the Sun Dries Our Eyes | San Francisco International Arts Festival | Dance Mission Theater | San Francisco
  • 3 Drops of Blood VI | Nanos Operetta w/ KUNST-STOFF, Myra Melford & Fay Simpson, Ledoh, Boris Kovac performed by the Chepikov String Quartet w/ participation of the composer | Project Artaud Theater | San Francisco
  • 3 Drops of Blood VII | Nanos Operetta w/ Frank Pahl, Sha Sha Higby, Rapt Productions, Arnold Dreyblatt performed by the Chepikov String Quartet w/ participation of the composer | Project Artaud Theater | San Francisco
  • Home | Collaboration with dancer Shinichi Iova Koga | Project Artaud Theater | San Francisco
  • Then Blue Birds Will Fill the Sky, A Sniper in the Lilies, Sorrow as My Shovel | w/ Chepikov String Quartet | Project Artaud Theater | San Francisco
  • Suicide Series | Project Artaud Theater | San Francisco
  • Black Twig in a White Sea | Collaboration with composer Frank Pahl and sculptor/dancer Sha Sha Higby | Project Artaud Theater | San Francisco
  • Sunshine the Werewolf | w/ Chepikov String Quartet | Project Artaud Theater | San Francisco
  • Khaehn, Beneath the Albaloo Tree | Project Artaud Theater | San Francisco
  • Aghar Rouzi Jodah Shavehm | Collaboration with composer Myra Melford and butoh dancer Ledoh | Project Artaud Theater | San Francisco
  • 'Til the Sun Dries Our Eyes | San Francisco Arts International Festival | Dance Mission Theater | San Francisco
  • Blue Bird | Collaboration with Indian percussion ensemble Tabla Rasa | Dance Mission Theater | San Francisco
  • Then Blue Birds Will Fill the Sky, Sorrow as My Shovel, All Things Will Wash to the Sea | w/ Chepikov String Quartet | Dance Mission Theater | San Francisco
  • Keigome Keigome | Collaboration with butoh dancers Paige Sorvillo, Kinji Hayashi and Isak Immanuel and Balkan ensemble The Toids | Dance Mission Theater | San Francisco
  • Beauty Teases, Frondosas | Dance Mission Theater | San Francisco
2004
  • 3 Drops of Blood I | Nanos Operetta w/ Koichi & Hiroko Tamano, Gamelan Sekar Jaya, Pamela Wunderlich, Melissa Wolfmann | Dance Mission Theater | San Francisco
  • Serei | Collaboration with butoh masters Koichi & Hiroko Tamano | Noh Space Theater | San Francisco (Awarded best Music/Sound/Text for a performance by Isadora Duncan Dance Awards, the Izzies)
  • 3 Drops of Blood II | Nanos Operetta w/ KUNST-STOFF, Koichi & Hiroko Tamano, Lhagva Ulziisaikhan & Chunsraikhachin Otgonbaatar, Edmund Welles: The Bass Clarinet Quartet | Dance Mission Theater | San Francisco
  • 3 Drops of Blood III | Nanos Operetta w/ inkBoat, ROVA Saxophone Quartet, Gamelan Sekar Jaya | Dance Mission Theater | San Francisco
  • The Vessel by Which I'll Pass | Collaboration w/ choreographer Leyya Tawil | Dance Mission Theater | San Francisco
  • Red Room #406 | Dance Mission Theater | San Francisco
  • The Spoon on the Table | Collaboration w/ Koichi & Hiroko Tamano and Edmund Welles: The Bass Clarinet Quartet | Dance Mission Theater | San Francisco
  • The Butcher, Beneath the Albaloo Tree, Should We Ever Part | Dance Mission Theater | San Francisco
  • 'Til the Sun Dries Our Eyes | 12 Galaxies | San Francisco
2003
  • Lulu | Collaboration w/ aerialist Abigail Munn | Galia | San Francisco