Scott Killian, longtime CLD friend, composer, dramaturge, and collaborator has been hard at work assembling a remarkable team of artists to create the score for Mythologies.
Scott Killian
Scott Killian (composer) has an extensive history with Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance. Over the past 30 years, he has composed scores for over a dozen dances for the company. He has also served in the capacity as an artistic advisor. Other collaborations in the dance world include 20 works with Zvi Gotheiner / ZviDance (resident composer) and, notably, a longtime relationship with choreographer Joanie Smith of the Minneapolis-based company, Shapiro and Smith Dance (over 30 works to date including Fathers and Sons for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre and A Late Frost with the Hubbard Street Dance Company). Past collaborators include choreographers David Dorfman, Susan Marshall, Ralph Lemon, Bebe Miller, Alwin Nikolais and Murray Louis. A well-known musician for dance, Mr. Killian has worked with such companies as New York City Ballet, the Jose Limon Company, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, and the Dance Theatre of Harlem.
As a composer and sound designer for theatre, Mr. Killian’s has created works for more than 120 professional productions. Some of his favorite include 1984 (a theatrical adaptation of the radio play by Peter Hackett for Dartmouth College); Major Barbara (American Conservatory Theatre, San Francisco); Mother Courage (with Olympia Dukakis); Othello (with John Douglas Thompson, Shakespeare and Company), and Lorenzaccio (Shakespeare Theatre of Wash. DC). NYC theatre credits include music and sound design at Manhattan Theatre Club, Primary Stages, MCC, Red Bull Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, and The Public Theatre as well as regional theatres across the country. Since 1997, Mr. Killian has served as Resident Composer and Sound Designer for the Berkshire Theatre Festival.
As an educator in the arts, Mr. Killian was a co-founder of the award-winning Performing Arts Program at New Jersey’s High Tech High School. As head of the department, he established curricula with pre-professional training in Dance, Drama, Musical Theatre, and Music and Audio Technology. In addition to 30 years in public education, Mr. Killian served on the faculties of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts Department of Dance and The American Dance Festival.
Carol Lipnik
Composer and vocalist Carol Lipnik has built a dedicated following in New York City being the artist in residence at the East Village Boîte Pangea (where she enjoyed a three year run), and frequent performances at Joe's Pub at The Public Theater. She was was an artist in residence at The Philadelphia Kimmel Center (Theater Residency Program in conjunction with The Public Theater), and has also appeared at the Atrium and the Rose Theater at Lincoln Center.
She has released six CDs on her Mermaid Alley Music label, most recently the acclaimed “Almost Back To Normal,” which was funded through a grant from the Peter S. Reed Foundation. She composed music with performance artist John Kelly for “The Escape Artist” and Michelle Handelman’s video installation “Hustlers and Empires” at The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
She is a three-time performance artist in residence at Yaddo and a recipient of a Global Recovery Initiatives Foundation sponsorship for 2020.
Jacob Lawson
Jacob Lawson is a composer, producer, and violinist who creates works for theatre, dance and popular music. His composition clients have included Tami Stronach Dance, The Flying Machine, David’s Bridal, Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance, Shakespeare and Co., Haus, Overcoast, Cellfish, Jumping Giant, and Spork Productions. He scored the award winning film Fray and the animated series The Passion of Jimmy and was a contributing composer for the films Boy Wonder and Kartellet.
In the world of popular music, he has recorded with and composed arrangements for best selling recording artists including Guster, Sixpence None-the-Richer, Jars of Clay, Ce Ce Winans, Vienna Teng, and Venus Hum, as well as dozens of other major label artists. Lawson has produced albums and remixes in a diverse range or genres for Jennifer Knapp, Carol Lipnik, Genna & Jesse, Dave’s True Story, and dozens more. He has performed with these and other artists including Tim McGraw, Jill Sobule, and Richard Julian throughout the US and Europe and has appeared in broadcast on BBC, MTV, Vh1, CBS, ABC, and NPR.
A conversation with renowned artists on their collaboration of creating the score...
We're so excited to share with you a brief conversation between these renowned artists, Killian, Lipnik, and Lawson about their process creating the score in collaboration with Cherylyn's choreography:
Scott: I’m so happy that after all these years of collaborative work that we have arrived at this point—all together! Over the last 20 years I have worked with you, Carol, on countless dance and theatre projects. With you, Jacob, the same. But we have never been together on a project. And what’s more, you both have collaborated with me on works for Cherylyn’s company — but individually. It’s really exciting that you, Cherylyn, and I have come together on this highly theatrical dance work.
Carol: Over the past many years both Scott and Jacob have been two of my favorite people to collaborate with, and this is the first time we are collaborating together. I have fond memories of the last time I collaborated with Scott and Cherylyn and am thrilled for another round — this time with Jacob, too!
Jacob: As we’ve begun working on this piece together, it has been fun for me to see that way in which our past working relationships have been merged together. For instance, Scott, you and I have always said that we share a brain (which makes me happy that someone has the other half of mine). On our past projects, this manifested itself in our work together by you repeatedly surprising and delighting me with your musical ideas. I would have never come up with what you did, but the moment I heard it I said “oh yes, THAT.” And you’ve told me you’ve had the same experience.
Now, when with Carol in the mix, we are both collaborating with Carol in a way that supports the magical musical ideas she brings with her voice and cool instruments. And, Carol, when I’ve been in the producer’s chair for records with you, my main job has been to take the beautiful song you’ve crafted and build it into a musical world in which your voice can soar to it’s maximum. Now, as we try to build sonic worlds to support Cherylyn’s choreography, I feel like we’re very naturally leaning on our past successful roles. It’s such fun!
Scott: Yes, and I feel that Mythologies is the perfect project to bring us together. It is steeped in evocative mythological imagery but it looks at this imagery through a contemporary lens. Likewise, our collective aesthetic draws upon a musical timelessness which is hard to pigeonhole. Finding the “tone” of the music and the orchestration continues to be challenging—especially when we are somewhat at the “blank canvas” part of this process.
Carol: I feel we are aiming to create an ancient, feral, sonically rich landscape incorporating some unusual sounds for Cherylyn’s choreography to inhabit.
Scott: And even when we do create for traditional musical instruments (violin, piano and — of course — the voice) it is in such a way that the musical forces are used in non-traditional ways. Carol has such an extended range of vocal abilities — it always amazes me!
On another note, one of the aspects of our current world which has certainly served to facilitate our work on this project is the ability we have to collaborate virtually. I love how we are now adding our improvisatory contributions to the music over the internet. The back-and-forth nature of working this way has been surprisingly exciting and inspiring. And without Jacob’s skills as a creative engineer, none of this would be possible.