Voices of Death Row is a collaborative, 20-minute, staged song cycle for baritone voice, an ensemble of eight instruments, and multimedia visual projections. It is a setting of poems written by death row inmates from the Alan B. Polunsky Unit, a maximum security prison located in Livingston, Texas. In addition to being an avenue for musicians, directors, and media designers at the University of Texas to to work together, this project has created conversation in the community on topics surrounding criminal justice, capital punishment, and prison or outsider art. It forms a bridge between two groups of people—prison inmates and university students—that would scarcely interact or think of each other.

Project Goal: $1000 (flexible funding)

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My name is Keith Allegretti, and I’m a composer in my 2nd year of the doctoral program at the University of Texas. I'm currently working with director KT Shorb, media designer Bruno-Pierre Houle, and opera singer Jawan Jenkins. About a year ago, I wrote to four death row inmates to request poems for a new song cycle. The inmates, who expressed deep gratitude at the prospect of their words being set to music, viewed it as a gift in its own right to have a stage for their work. I will be able to share a recording with them eventually, probably though a radio broadcast through one of Houston’s progressive radio show’s series on prison life. In this way, the piece has potential for a life after its premiere.

What We Need

Funds from this campaign will go toward paying our musicians and dramaturg, as well as contributing to videographer fees. The video recording is a particularly crucial aspect to this project, since that is the form many of those most affected by the work will be able to experience it. If we reach our goal, each musician and dramaturg will receive up to $100 from the campaign, significantly helping our overall production costs.

Since this project has already been programmed as part of the Cohen New Works Festival, our campaign funds will serve as an addition to our current budget. We have, through the festival, received funding to cover our staging, equipment, and costume needs. Your contribution would help fund the other aspects of this piece, and it would be low risk to you since we have a confirmed place in the festival. Every bit helps, and I sincerely hope you will consider contributing to what I consider to be a worthy, collaborative cause.

Our Team

KT Shorb

kt shorb (BM, Oberlin Conservatory; MA, UT-Austin) is a director, writer, and performer who grew up in Massachusetts, rural Japan, and Tokyo. She has trained and worked with Anne Bogart, KJ Sanchez, Pirrone Yousefzadeh, Adelina Anthony, Sharon Bridgforth, Pauline Oliveros, and John Luther Adams. shorb is the Producing Artistic Director of the Generic Ensemble Company. Directorial work includes: THE MIKADO: RECLAIMED; ROBIN HOOD: AN ELEGY; WHAT’S GOIN’ ON?; THE EXPERIMENT; STUCK ON GEE-DOT; THE PSYCHOPOMP PROJECT; RADIO KADUNA; A TORTOISE WALKS MAJESTICALLY ON WINDOW LEDGES; and EAGLE WOMAN POEMS. Her solo show, UNA CORDA (Yvan Greenberg, dir) has been performed in Chicago, Urbana-Champaign, Los Angeles, Oberlin College, and various Texas locations. She has served as faculty at Southwestern University and UT-Austin. She was a 2015 invited fellow at the Peer Leadership Exchange for the National Institute for Directing and Ensemble Creation in Minneapolis, hosted by Pangea World Theater and Art2Action. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Performance as Public Practice at the University of Texas at Austin. 

Bruno-Pierre Houle

I believe every tale is new, whether it is shared for the first time or has been told for centuries. 

As a set and projection designer, I shape spaces, frames and expectations. I explore the thresholds that allow the suspension of our disbelief. I make the familiar strange again. 

As a collaborator, I uncover the details that lead to new possibilities. I investigate the past. I question the now. I expect the challenge. And I embrace the missteps. 

As a visual storyteller, I treasure the dynamic beginnings of new plays and I hunt for potentials of fresh discourse in the classics. With each project, I reconstruct meaningful narratives that empower the audience to make the story their own. 

Keith Allegretti 

A native of Santa Fe, New Mexico, Keith Allegretti is a composer and pianist who enjoys working comfortably in many genres, including chamber, orchestral, vocal, and electronic music, and even musical theater. His music has been performed in Santa Fe, Houston, Berlin, Ann Arbor, New York and elsewhere by professional and amateur ensembles, including Santa Fe New Music, Quartetto Indaco, the Rice University Chorale, the University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra, Circuit Bridges, the Santa Fe Community Orchestra, the American Creators Ensemble, and First Readings Project. He holds degrees in composition from Rice University and the University of Michigan.

Click to go to the Indiegogo Page