Event

The Innocents, a concert

Atlanta's premier contemporary classical music ensemble Bent Frequency will present an intensive multi-media performance examining the issue of wrongful imprisonment in the United States.

In 2000, photographer Taryn Simon traveled across the US photographing and interviewing individuals who had been wrongly convicted and served time for crimes they did not commit. The individuals photographed were exonerated through DNA evidence, some after serving decades in prison. In most cases, mistaken identification was the primary cause of the wrongful convictions. Simon photographed the men at sites that had particular significance to their conviction: the scene of the crime, arrest, or the scene of the alibi. The resulting collection of photographs have been exhibited internationally and featured in numerous publications, including The New York Times Magazine, and Vanity Fair.

Composer-percussionists John Lane and Allen Otte created The Innocents inspired by Simon's photos. With spoken word, the use of non-traditional instruments (rocks, pots, pans, trash cans, etc...) and added pre-recorded soundscapes, The Innocents is an intensive, multimedia, music theater work that, deals with a variety of issues related to wrongful conviction. Bent Frequency will join Lane and Otte for this production on a performance Frederic Rzewski's Coming Together and Attica; a pair of works based on the 1971 riot at the Attica Correctional Facility in New York in which the inmates rioted over severe and inhumane living conditions.

Proceeds from the performance will benefit the Georgia Innocence Project, a nonprofit that works to end wrongful convictions in Georgia and Alabama.

______________________________