Righteous Rage

About the gathering

Following a residency with La Fábrica Subin, Rebekah Heller performs selections from Righteous Rage, her 2026 project built around the possibilities of the bassoon in multiplicity.

After more than a decade commissioning new solo works, Heller turned toward the experience of playing with other bassoonists. She began building a repertoire for bassoon choir, commissioning new works and reimagining existing compositions for many bassoons. In Righteous Rage, Heller performs every voice herself through multitracking, transforming a single instrumental voice into an ensemble.

The project brings together music by Julius Eastman, Steve Reich, Jessie Cox, Fay Victor, and Brittany J. Green. Green's Righteous Rage, which gives the project its title, was commissioned by Heller in conversation with Eastman's The Holy Presence of Joan d'Arc and brings a fierce urgency to questions of the world being passed from one generation to the next.

At La Fábrica Subin, Heller brings this layered body of work into live performance, inviting us to encounter the bassoon as many voices at once.

Program

1. Arrival
2. Talk
3. Righteous Rage

About the artist

Rebekah Heller is a virtuosic bassoonist, conductor, and composer who has spent her career reconsidering what a bassoonist can be. Stepping away from a conventional orchestral path, she built a practice around living composers, commissioning, improvisation, and experimentation, treating the bassoon as territory still open to discovery. Her work moves through electronics, ensemble, and performance, at times incorporating space, memory, clothing, and light to expand how the instrument can be played, heard, and encountered.

Heller has appeared as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, Nagoya Philharmonic, and New World Symphony. The New Yorker has called her "an impressive solo bassoonist," and The New York Times has praised her "flair." A longtime member and Co-Artistic Director Emerita of the International Contemporary Ensemble, she has helped bring hundreds of new works into being. She teaches bassoon and improvisation at Mannes School of Music at The New School. Her 2026 album, Righteous Rage, pushes further into the possibilities of an instrument she continues to reinvent.