2010 - Chamber Orchestra, Dancers, Art, Poetry, Photography, Video, Electronics

Premiered on 2/27/10 with Elizabeth Comninellis as Lily Foster.

'Hullo, My Name is Lily Foster' is a story of overcoming the effects of child abuse. With a cast and crew of 35, Lily Foster is a 90 minute multimedia presentation, featuring a live chamber orchestra with electronics, dance (both modern and aerial), paintings, poetry, and video (live and processed, triggered dynamically). The piece also calls for the soprano (Lily Foster), the conductor (Lily's Father), and the dancers to act throughout the performance. Given that the piece focuses on such uncomfortable subject matter, the performance contains instances of foul language, destruction of property (paintings), nudity; as well as depictions of child abuse, rape, suicide, and pornographic imagery.

The music is not an attempt to catalogue the abuses a young girl experienced, but to describe how she is overcoming them. It's a story of hope, perseverance, and recovery.

A related component of the project is a two week long art and video installation in the ATLAS lobby, which consists of thirteen paintings by Ewen (in the voice of Lily Foster) along with a dynamically updating video wall. The video artwork cycled through more than 3,000 original photos and display comments and conversations from Lily Foster's online identity, including her Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and Blogger accounts. During those two weeks (and for several months beforehand) visitors had the opportunity to interact with Lily Foster virtually (as she doesn't exist in real life), and those conversations and interactions were displayed on the installation.

There are several related videos on the YouTube channel. They can be found by exploring the two video links to the left.