GERSHON KINGSLEY NEWS - Updated September 20, 2007

September 2007
So much is happening! We are working on new segments of the website concerning
the "Never ending Story" of POPCORN and the re-discovery of early electronic music from
the seventies. Just search at YouTube for popcornsong - you will be surprised of the
innovative ways of performing this classic.

Gershon will receive the Moog Music Lifetime Award "The Bob", from the MOOG Foundation
at the Moogfest 2007 at B.B.King's in New York on Sept. 22.
On Sept. 20, 2007 the first Moogfest Symposium will be held at Columbia University
also with the participation of Gershon.

Here is the full Press release of the event at B.B.King's. Here the preview:

And here the event post.

Exiting NEWS from the department of classical music: RAOUL will be premiered on
February 21,2008 by the Theater Bremen in Germany and have 10 performances there
before moving on to Budapest. Gershon will be conducting the first 4 performances.

A synopsis of the opera is available here. We are preparing a special blog-site to accompany this event from rehearsals to final performance.

Visit here often for up-to-date news.

April 2006

Seton Hall University
On April 2, 2006

Gershon's Composition "Voices from the Shadows"
was performed at Jubilee Hall at Seton Hall University in South Orange, NJ
under the direction of GK to an appreciative audience.

The New Yorker
The Talk of the Town
The newest review of the latest releases of Gershon in THE NEW YORKER magazine
of April 17, 2006

read or download from here as a pdf file

GOD IS A MOOG
There is a lot of buzz in the press about the upcoming new release of works
by Gershon. The album has been announced in Time Out magazine in New York:

Entertainment Weekly had this to say:

The New York Times article of August 21, 2005 can be read here.

The Milken Archive
of American jewish music has just released a new CD of Gershon Kingsley.
It contains his religious works: "Voices of the Shadow" jazz Psalms and
excerpts of "Shabbat for Today" and "Shiru Ladonai".
The Washington Post wrote the following review:
It is much too common to view the Holocaust as a kind of horrible statistic -
millions dead in Nazi gas chambers. gershon Kingsley's CD "Voices from the Shadow"
avoids this problem. It is a cycle of 17 songs, with texts in various languages
(with translations) written by prisoners in the death camps. It introduces us to a
16-year old girl dreaming of her first dance and waking up "still a captive".
It offers a macbre children's song ("we're riding in a funeral march") - a lullaby
for an infant whose brothers are all dead. The statistics become individuals,
and all the harrowing, intensely human reality of the Holocaust overwhelms the
listener.
Kingsley, who is equally at homein classical and popular styles, conducts his
own ensemble and seven gifted soloists in this music, which includes a pair
of jazz psalmsand excerpts from two liturgical works. The disk is part of the
monumental Milken Archive of American jewish music, which will eventually include
more than 50 CDs, and is being distributed by Naxos.
Here is the descriptive article about the CD in pdf format.

See the critics have to say in GRAMOPHONE and the Chicago Tribune.

RAOUL
Kingsley has composed the music for Raoul, a two-act opera based on
the life and accomplishment of Raoul Wallenberg. Wallenberg was a
Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Jews from the Nazi regime.
Michael Kunze, one of the best-known lyricists in Europe, is writing the
libretto for this work.

The work has been performed in an abbreviated concert performance at
the Goethe Institut New York on April 30, 2004 and received standing ovations
by the more than 120 invited guests. A DVD Video recording and a CD
are available upon request.

POPCORN SIGHTINGS
We were amused to hear Popcorn used as the soundtrack for a Pampers
TV commercial. Popcorn also appeared in the motion-picture soundtracks
for "Dick", a comedy about the Watergate scandal, and "Detroit Rock City."
Apparently, the song lives on in memory and is rediscovered by people
today. There are plenty of re-mixes from DJs all over the world, midi versions
and cellphone ringtones.

Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass have released a new record: "Lost Treasures",
featuring POPCORN as Track 17.

The Crazy Frog phenomenon has also taken on Popcorn. See the trailer
for the album which went to one of the top spots on the European Album Charts.
A new Album by the producers of Crazy Frog featuring Popcorn has reached
the 4th spot on the European Album charts In Aug/Sep 05.

click to see the trailer in Apple Quicktime.

If you hear Popcorn in movies or media, send us your sightings!
gkingsli@earthlink.net

THE ELECTRICAL PARADE IS still on in the Disneyparks!
Walt Disney's „Main Street Electrical Parade" features the
Perrey-Kingsley composition "Baroque Hoedown" as its theme song.
The program is now featured exclusively at Disneyland in California and
EuroDisney in Paris. "Baroque Hoedown" was originally a part of the
Perrey-Kingsley album "Kaleidoscopic Vibrations," (Kaleidoscopic)
an eclectic, very Moog-centric recording from the their
collaboration in the 1960's. (PerrKing).

If you like more Information just send an email to gkingsli@earthlink.net