REGARDS TO
THE END.
AS EXPANDED CINEMA – PERFORMED WITH LIVE ORCHESTRA AND VIDEO INSTALLATION
Regards to the End is an album about human beings on a planet who need one another.
It is about being one of those people. It examines many artists working at the beginning of the AIDS crisis and tries to take cues on how to be an artist and an activist in the midst of our present, with a specific eye on climate action. The aim of a Regards to the End as Expanded Cinema is to fully realize the vision or scope of the compositions in a live setting, happening ephemerally, with audience present, equal participants in the full realization. Each song has been arranged for 12-13 piece chamber ensemble (string quintet, woodwinds, horn, drums, guitar, piano, synthesizers and voice) with the possibility for expansion to full orchestra. Emily’s video practice utilizes archival footage of early AIDS activism (picture ashes on the White House lawn, or die-ins in the streets of Manhattan), clips of modern and contemporary dance (picture Trisha Brown’s Set and Reset, or Merce Cunningham spinning endlessly as a young man against a pink sky), and captured moments of extreme climate events (picture palm trees in a hurricane or calving ice caps). These are all edited with the same eye, agonistic repetition, disparate speeds, and a belief that the three are all a piece of a whole. The video installation is a chance for a visual conversation with the audience, one that both coheres the ideas present in the songs, and invites their imaginations to stir association and memory in the ways which sound alone cannot do.
Album design Julia Fletcher, featuring The Piers (exterior with person sunbathing), courtesy of the Alvin Baltrop Estate and Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
THE MUSIC.
REGARDS TO THE END, RELEASED 2022
Spotify / Apple Music / Tidal / Soundcloud / Download
EXCERPT OF VIDEO WORK
EXPANDED PERFORMANCE LOGISTICS.
duration
45-50 minute runtime, with the ability to expand to an hour if needed
ITERATIONS
Solo (current touring iteration)
Quartet (current touring iteration)
12-13 piece chamber ensemble
Full orchestra
Iteration 1, 2, 3, or 4, with the addition of a dance company*
*Building on Emily’s longtime collaborative relationship with choreographer Raja Feather Kelly (A Strange Loop, Fairview), this iteration could ideally include 6+ dancers and Raja as choreographer and director. Even without the addition of the dancers, it would be interesting to bring Raja in as a choreographer / director should budget allow, to advise on and design lighting / staging / presentation.
BUDGET
This is where we need the guidance of a producer!
Ideally, Emily would work with an established ensemble and potentially only travel with a drummer and maybe another multi-instrumentalist so as to keep the travel costs down. The 12-13 piece arrangements would require 2-3 days of rehearsal with the ensemble, along with a conductor if we were with full orchestra. We would of course want to build into the fee enough to cover travel, commissions, and a fee for Emily.
SELECTED PAC TOURING HISTORY.
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September 2022 – Frenchtown, NJ
Regards to the End quartet
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October 2016 – New York City, NY
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January 2023 – Minneapolis, MN
Regards to the End quartet
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October 2019 – New York City
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April 2016 – Frankfurt, DE
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November 2017 – Minneapolis, MN
With Michi Wiancko, Greg Fox, and members of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra
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January 2019 – North Adams, MA
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June 2022 – Phoenix, AZ
Regards to the End quartet
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Toulmin Fellowship for The Center for Ballet and the Arts & National Sawdust – September 2022 – Brooklyn, NY
Regards to the End quartet
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March 2017 – Los Angeles, CA
with Japanese Breakfast
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April 2016 – Nuremberg, DE
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June 2019 – Brooklyn, NY
with Tortoise
*Have expressed interest in bringing the orchestra/dance iteration to the Festival with the assistance of a producing partner to help find funding.
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November 2022 – Columbus, OH
Regards to the End quintet, Artist Conversation with Hanif Abdurraqib, and Student Lecture
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Washington, D.C. – June 2019
Lecture / solo performance – link
ARTIST STATEMENT.
ARTIST STATEMENT.
“My work bridges pop and chamber music and explores concepts around human relation to the natural world rooted in a love for both. I am interested in the ways performance and recordings influence one another and I work in both realms. My work also interacts with my video practice through projection at performances which intersects imagery of contemporary dance, extreme weather and effects of climate crisis, and protest footage from ACT UP.”
“Surprise and precision are Wells’ greatest assets as a composer, and Regards to the End is filled with both.”
— PITCHFORK
“Like the artists and activists she memorializes, Wells herself creates art that speaks to the masses and extends heart-felt pleas for better.”
— VINYL ME PLEASE
“Smolders and scorches.”
— WNYC NEW SOUNDS
“Wells’ skill as an arranger, producer and master of a small orchestra’s worth of instruments gives Regards to the End a gorgeous sense of theatricality.”