Place: For Your Consideration // 2021 Grammy Awards

Place (New Amsterdam Records)

NOMINATED FOR TWO 2021 GRAMMY® AWARDS

Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance

TED HEARNE, STEVEN BRADSHAW, SOPHIA BYRD,
JOSEPHINE LEE, ISAIAH ROBINSON, SOL RUIZ, and PLACE ORCHESTRA

Best Contemporary Classical Composition

TED HEARNE, COMPOSER

LISTEN TO THE FULL ALBUM HERE

Colonizing Space (from ‘Place’)
film by A.M. Frison
music by Ted Hearne, text by Saul Williams
featuring Isaiah Robinson, vocals

Place: Quarantine Edition directed and edited by Ted Hearne
featuring live performances by Ayanna Woods, Sol Ruiz, Isaiah Robinson, Josephine Lee, Sophia Byrd, Steven Bradshaw
premiered July 9, 2020 on WNYC.
post-show discussion moderated by John Schaefer, featuring Saul Williams, Ted Hearne, Patricia McGregor and Nathalie Joachim

ABOUT PLACE

"Gentrification is a generational conversation that has gone by many names. We should not discuss what brings you back to the city without acknowledging why you left.” - Saul Williams from Place

Created with poet/librettist Saul Williams and director Patricia McGregor, Place is a 75-minute work considering the topic of gentrification and displacement. The piece took shape as I saw my own neighborhood of Fort Greene, Brooklyn rapidly transforming under the last term of Mike Bloomberg's mayorship, leading me to grapple with my own role in that process.

I wrote as best I could toward these feelings (Part 1), and handed that text to Saul Williams, who then responded and clapped back with his own libretto (Part 2-3). Saul challenged the spiraling narcissism inherent in the oh-so-well-meaning white male protagonist exploring his own complicity, by kicking the subject outward to its historical and theoretical origins.

Place is a patchwork, meant to be heard as a jarring, Sanford Biggers-esque quilt, where the edges make it clear the materials have their own infungible properties, not a neoliberal melting pot where all perspectives can combine to make a pleasant if bland smoothie.

“Place is exquisite, a work of genius whose premiere recording seems to arrive both at the right
cultural moment and entirely too late.”

— Opera News

Reviews and interviews

NPR’s All Things Considered interview with Ted Hearne on Place
The Daily Beast: Essay by Ted Hearne and Video Premiere from Place
Classical Post interview with Ted Hearne and Saul Williams on Place
Vol. 1 Brooklyn interview with Ted Hearne about Place

WNYC’s The Greene Space presents: Place: A World Premiere

The New York Times preview of Place
The New York Times review of Place’s premiere performance at BAM

Opera News review of Place
The Nation review of Place
The Wire (UK) review of Place
Unwinnable Noteworthy Hip Hop - July 2020 review of Place
AnEarful review of Place
The Road to Sound review of Place
New York Music Daily review of Place
Place featured on WNYC’s New Sounds

“‘Place’ takes shape in songs that emerge like a graffiti mural as repetitive gestures gradually bloom into vibrant, brash statements in high-volume color... It always felt as if Mr. Hearne was questioning his own comfort and — in the final moment — his power.”

— The New York Times

CREATIVE TEAM

TED HEARNE composer
SAUL WILLIAMS librettist
PATRICIA McGREGOR director

NICK TIPP album production, mixing and engineering
SANFORD BIGGERS cover art
ANDREW GARVER mastering
NIA EASLEY additional album art
LAURA GREY design

TIM BROWN and SANFORD BIGGERS video and scenic design
E.B. BROOKS and RACHEL MYERS costume design
PABLO SANTIAGO lighting design