Bobby Previte continues his Terminals trilogy with Rhapsody, an acoustic song cycle on the subject of transit and migration. Subtitled Terminals Part II: In Transit, Previte’s newest work is scored for acoustic sextet and features fellow composer-improvisers guitarist Nels Cline, harpist Zeena Parkins, pianist John Medeski, alto saxophonist Fabian Rucker, and vocalist/erhu player Jen Shyu. This latest major work, released on RareNoise Records in February 2018, comes on the heels of Previte’s powerful November 2016 RareNoise release, Mass, a nine-part work scored for choir, pipe organ and heavy metal trio.
In 2015, Previte was awarded the Greenfield Prize for Music at the Hermitage Artist Retreat to create a new work. Rhapsody is the result. Rhapsody had its world premiere on April 21, 2017 at New College in Sarasota, Florida.
Beginning from the point of view of a passenger sitting comfortably in an airplane, Rhapsody twists, turns, and migrates until the passenger arrives in the dead of night at an unfamiliar shore. As Previte proposed in his artist’s statement for Rhapsody:
“What is the experience of being in transit? Separated from your home but not yet at your destination, you are neither here nor there, confined with strangers in an intimate environment for a predetermined amount of time, uncomfortable, yet somehow free. To travel is to be bound with these strangers by faith—faith in the vessel which carries you, faith in the people who operate it, and ultimately, faith in the strangers waiting at your destination.”
