(Image Source: Aleba Co)

PRISM Quartet will be presenting “Mending Wall” in both Pennsylvania and New York City this March.

The organization, which will be celebrating its 35^th anniversary in both states, will showcase the world premiere at the Bryn Mawr College Performing Arts Series in Pennsylvania on March 21 and 22 before heading to Roulette in Brooklyn for the final showcase on March 23, 2020.

The work, which will be fully staged, will feature soprano Tony Arnold, pianist Arturo O’Farill,” and a saxophone quartet with music by George Lewis, Arturo O’Farrill, Juri Seo, and Martin Bresnick. There will also be poems by Robert Frost, Keorapetse Kgositsile, Waly Salomao, and Guillermo Gómez-Peña. Jorine Keesmaat will direct the production.

“’Mending Wall’ is one of the most personally meaningful projects of my career,” stated Matthew Levy, PRISM’s co-founder and executive director, in a press release. “It began as a response to the symbol of a wall as a dehumanizing force. Walls are a foundational part of our world: they have mythical and poetic resonance, but also material consequences. Although America’s current zeal for wall-building has counterparts throughout history and across the globe, it represents a specific failure of imagination.

“‘Mending Wall’ amplifies a range of musical and poetic voices; our hope is that the project will illuminate and help us to confront and mend fractures in our human community.”