Title of piece: RAW, a Multimedia Opera (ten-minute excerpt, featuring six scenes)
Date of composition: 1999
Date of performance/recording: 1999
Composer: Paulo C. Chagas
Performer/Instruments: Opera Bonn
Form: free form, following the meaning and structure of the texts themselves
Rhythm: free and complex rhythms, usually without regular beat sense, except in passages based on repeated patterns derived from West African drumming

What to Listen for:

  • Use of electronic media, including synthesizers, computers, and televisions
  • Atonal harmony and freely expressive melodic lines
  • Use of complex rhythms in free meter as well as rhythmic ostinatos derived from the 12/8 bell pattern of the Ewe people in southern Ghana (Scene 21)
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