Above the Noise features nine vocalists, each representing a narrative voice created from a compilation of ethnographic interviews of students on a college campus. The nine narratives reflect a diversity of students’ experiences carrying on, questioning, deepening, discarding, and daring to distance themselves from the religions of their families at this critical juncture in their lives. Each are given permission to dig deep into their relationships with religion and faith as they enter a period of independence in their lives, before reflecting on that new relationship when they return home for the holiday’s. Updating traditional oratorio form through jazz-inflected, folk-pop-choral music, composer Daphne Gampel weaves interview-based narratives to create a shared space of stories and interconnected differences.

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Video footage available upon request.

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Director: Ryan Dobrin
Composer & Music Director: Daphne Gampel
Producer: Henry Lombino
Stage Manager: Emily Bubeck
Additional Music Direction: Ian Miller
Associate Producer: Immi Chaudhry
Originally Developed with: Ramsay Burgess
Dramaturg: David L. Caruso
Light Designer: Sam Driver
Sound Technician: Nicky Young

 

Ensemble: Molly Bogin, Xander Browne, Kenyon Duncan, Daphne Gampel, Alex O’Shea, Imani Russell, Rose Stoller, Cassie Willson, Wenxuan Xue
Band: Becket Cerny, Daniel Durst, Kevin Garcia, Chris Peters

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Photos by Nicole Boyd