Bill

Kaminsky/Campbell/Reed to write Georgia O’Keefe Opera

January 4, 2016 by Bill

San Francisco’s Opera Parallele (OP) has announced its first main stage opera commission, the creation of a new opera by American composer Laura Kaminsky inspired by the life of Georgia O’Keeffe at the time she left New York to embark on her iconic and influential experiences in New Mexico. The company has been awarded a prestigious Repertoire Development Grant from Opera America in the amount of $35,000 to support the work’s initial stages of creation and workshopping, and is set for an April 2019 premiere. The opera will feature a libretto by Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed, with a film by Reed as part of the production. The production team will be led by Opera Parallele Creative Director Brian Staufenbiel, will be conducted by OP Artistic Director and founder Nicole Paiement and will feature a cast of ten, details will be announced. The production is being undertaken by Opera Parallele in consortium with American Opera Projects and Cornish College of the Arts, and all three co-commissioners will present performances and other activities to be announced.

About The Opera

Today It Rains is set in May 1929, when Georgia O’Keeffe takes a train from New York to Santa Fe with her friend Rebecca Strand, propelling herself away from her tumultuous relationship with Alfred Stieglitz and his circle in search of a more fulfilled life as an artist. The libretto will segue seamlessly between O’Keeffe and Strand, charging forward through the American landscape, and O’Keeffe looking back on her love for Stieglitz. The opera will culminate in a moving finale as O’Keeffe arrives in Santa Fe to begin her new life. The opera’s title comes from one of O’Keeffe’s letters.

About The Composer

Laura Kaminsky is an award-winning, internationally recognized composer of opera, orchestra, chamber, vocal and choral music who is known to Bay Area audiences most recently for the Festival Opera production of As One, an opera about gender identity . As One (co-librettists Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed), premiered in 2014 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) to unanimously positive reviews, and was mounted in 2015 by Festival Opera in Oakland. Subsequently, the As One team has since been commissioned by Houston Grand Opera for a new work, Some Light Emerges, that will premiere in 2017, and by San Francisco’s Opera Parallèle for Today It Rains. Other upcoming commissions include a Piano Quintet for Ursula Oppens and the Cassatt String Quartet and a new work for Flute and Piano for the University of Minnesota/Duluth.

Kaminsky has received grants, awards and fellowships from, among others, the National Endowment for the Arts, Koussevitzky Music Foundation, Opera America, Chamber Music America, BAM/The Kennedy Center De Vos Institute, Aaron Copland Fund, Virgil Thomson Foundation, Roger Shapiro Fund for New Music, American Music Center, USArtists International, CEC ArtsLink International Partnerships, Likhachev-Russkiy Mir Foundation Cultural Fellowship, Kenan Institute for the Arts, Artist Trust, New York State Council on the Arts, Bronx Arts Council, Arts Westchester, North Carolina Arts Council, Seattle Arts Commission, and Meet the Composer. She has received six ASCAP-Chamber Music America Awards for Adventuresome Programming, a citation from the Office of the President of the Borough of Manhattan, the 2015 Polish Gold Cross of Merit, a decoration awarded by the President of Poland for exemplary public service or humanitarian work, as well as the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage 2010 Chopin Award. She has been a fellow at the Hermitage Artist Retreat Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Centrum Foundation, Dorland Mountain Arts Colony, and Millay Colony for the Arts, and, in 2016, the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France.

Currently composer-in-residence at American Opera Projects, Kaminsky is a member of the faculty in the School of the Arts/Conservatory of Music at Purchase College/SUNY, where she served as dean from 2004-2008; she was also Artistic Director of Symphony Space in New York City until 2014. Previously she was chair of the music department at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Artistic Director of the European Mozart Academy in Poland, and visiting faculty at the National Academy of Music in Ghana. In New York she held the positions of Director of Music and Theatre Programs at The New School, Artistic Director of Town Hall, and Associate Director of Humanities at the 92nd Street Y.

Torke THREE MANHATTAN BRIDGES with the Albany Symphony

December 19, 2015 by Bill

Michael Torke’s new piano concerto, Three Manhattan Bridges, will be premiered by the Albany Symphony on December 19, with Joyce Yang as soloist. Torke performed as soloist in his first piano concerto in 1994, which was also premiered by the Albany Symphony with David Alan Miller as conductor.

Torke talks about the association with Albany: “I am thrilled to have a long association with a great orchestra like the Albany Symphony. They bring a depth of understanding to their performances of my music, and David Alan Miller is a commanding, and at the same time, sensitive interpreter.”

Albany Records will be releasing a recording of Three Manhattan Bridges (Joyce Yang, Soloist and the Albany Symphony) along with Winter’s Tale, Torke’s new cello concerto that he wrote for Julie Albers and which The Albany Symphony premiered last season.

For an interview with Torke and Miller, click here.

Bruce’s THE FIREWORK MAKER’S DAUGHTER at Royal Opera House

November 9, 2015 by Bill

David Bruce’s The Firework Maker’s Daughter returns to the Royal Opera House in December for a run of 27 performances at the Lindbury Studio. The work premiered in 2013 and was nominated for both an Olivier Award and a British Composers Award. The Daily Telegraph’s Michael White called it “the most utterly endearing, joyous and delightful show I’ve seen in ages” and Opera Now called it “an intoxicating brew….The show is the operatic equivalent of a page-turner, ideally paced for an all-ages audience”

One of a select group of operas that have been performed on Broadway, The Firework Maker’s Daughter shares that honor with Menotti’s operas (4 of which ran on Broadway).

For more information, please click here.

Momenta Quartet premieres Sparr AVALOCH

November 1, 2015 by Bill

D.J. Sparr’s new string quartet, Avaloch, was given it’s premiere by the Momenta Quartet at the Tenri Cultural Institue.

New York Classical Review’s George Grelia reported:

“Avaloch set the aesthetic tone for the entire concert, the unique sound of American homespun experimentation, free of ideology and full of curiosity. The piece revolves around an agitated, yearning tune, and the music has a rough-hewn quality, like shape-note singing, particularly in the counterpoint. There is also pre-recorded music that played asynchronously from smart phones held inside ceramic pots by each musician.

Avaloch has a fulfilling sense of waywardness, disregarding obvious formal considerations and searching for a shape organic to itself. That quality, and Momenta’s weighty, lyrical playing gave it a social quality that is fundamental to the Ivesian conception of music making.”

Read the full review here.

Heggie GREAT SCOTT debuts at Dallas Opera

November 1, 2015 by Bill

Opera star Arden Scott returns to her hometown to save the struggling company that launched her career. The opening night performance of the long-lost opera she discovered falls on the same night as the home team’s first National Championship game (Go, Grizzlies!). The fate of the company hangs in the balance as Arden discovers that greatness is truly a matter of heart.

Starring Joyce DiDonato • Ailyn Pérez • Frederica von Stade • Nathan Gunn • Anthony Roth Costanzo

Conductor Patrick Summers • Director Jack O’Brien
Set and Costume Design Bob Crowley • Lighting Design Brian MacDevitt • Projection Design Elaine J. McCarthy

With an original libretto by Terrence McNally, Great Scott is the sixth opera by Jake Heggie. To purchase tickets, please click here.

The San Diego Opera will give the west coast premiere in May of next year. To purchase tickets, please click here.

Brantley commissioned to write a Cello Concerto

October 14, 2015 by Bill

Paul Brantley has been commissioned by Maestro Kenneth Kiesler and the Grammy Award winning University of Michigan Symphony to compose The Royal Revolver, a concertino for solo cello and 15 instruments.

Eric Jacobsen, cellist and conductor of The Knights, will be the cello soloist. This will be premiered in the 2017-2018 season in Ann Arbor. Details TBA.

Brantley writes: “As a composer/cellist, this cello concertino is a piece I’ve literally been thinking about writing since I was about sixteen. And so with Maestro Kiesler’s invitation, the time feels ripe to finally bring it to fruition. The Royal Revolver borrows its name from Finnegans Wake – one of Joyce’s many catch phrases such as “Here Comes Everybody” and “The Here We Are Again Gaities” – all of which evoke our mutually, psychically interdependent selves in that extraordinary dreamscape he created. I’m trying to emulate a fragment of this world by the solo cello constantly interfacing with and morphing into the other instruments of the ensemble, all in my best neo-baroque/psychedelic fashion. But on a pretty modest scale: with just a chamber ensemble of 15 instruments, in three movements, and all about 15 minutes in duration.”

If you would like to learn a little more about this Finnegans Wake inspired piece, and possibly even contribute to the consortium-styled commission, please see our Fractured Atlas project page.

Brantley commissioned to write a cello concerto

October 14, 2015 by Bill

Paul Brantley has been commissioned by Maestro Kenneth Kiesler and the Grammy Award winning University of Michigan Symphony to compose THE ROYAL REVOLVER, a concertino for solo cello and 15 instruments.

Eric Jacobsen, cellist and conductor of The Knights, will be the cello soloist. This will be premiered in the 2016-2017 season in Ann Arbor. Details TBA.

If you would like to learn a little more about this Finnegans Wake inspired piece, and possibly even contribute to the consortium-styled commission, please see our Fractured Atlas project page.

Fung at the Vancouver Biennale

October 2, 2015 by Bill

Vivan Fung’s new Biennale Snapshots was premiered at the Vancouver Biennale on the Vancouver Symphony’s opening concert. Inspired by artwork in the outdoor exhibition, the piece was a vivid reminder of Fung’s fresh and engaging orchestra composition.

Washington Post’s Lovable New Operas

August 16, 2015 by Bill

The Washington Post lists contemporary operas that audiences responded to favorably (“Readers’ Guide to Lovable New Operas“), and several BHM operas were included:

Dead Man Walking

Moby-Dick

Silent Night

The Manchurian Candidate

As One

There are also 10 operas on this list that we’ve engraved in our production department.

Congrats to Jake Heggie, Kevin Puts, Terrence McNally, Laura Kaminsky, Kimberly Reed, and the indefatigable Mark Campbell who wrote 3 of these librettos.

Santa Fe Opera to premiere Bates/Campbell The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs

August 7, 2015 by Bill

Composer Mason Bates and librettist Mark Campbell collaborate on an original opera based on the life of one of the greatest innovators of our time in a new production

SANTA FE, NM – General Director Charles MacKay announced today Santa Fe Opera’s next commission, The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, which will have its world premiere in 2017 as a part of the company’s 61st season. The opera will be composed by Mason Bates, one of America’s most acclaimed and popular composers, with an original libretto by Mark Campbell, who was the librettist for the Pulitzer Prize-winning opera, Silent Night. This will be Bates’ first produced opera. Stage Director Kevin Newbury, who brought both Theodore Morrison’s Oscar (2013) and Lewis Spratlan’s Life is a Dream (2010) to the stage in Santa Fe, will be joined by Michael Christie, Music Director for Minnesota Opera, who makes his company debut leading the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra.

“Riding on the heels of Jennifer Higdon and Gene Scheer’s Cold Mountain, which received both audience and critical acclaim at its world premiere on Saturday, it is a thrill to announce Santa Fe Opera’s next major commission, “ said General Director Charles MacKay. “The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs will mark the Company’s 15th world premiere, continuing the tradition of producing work that pushes the boundaries of the art form. We are delighted to take this journey into the life and legacy of a distinctly American figure through the creative genius of Mason Bates and Mark Campbell.”

MORE ABOUT THE (R)EVOLUTION OF STEVE JOBS

The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs is a new opera that examines the life of one of the most fascinating figures of our time; an innovator who simplified communication with sleek devices, but who paradoxically learned that complex human relationships require more than one button to work. The opera starts at a moment in Jobs’ life when he must face his own mortality and circles back to the events and people in his past that shaped and inspired him: his father Paul, Zen Buddhism, his relationship with a woman whose child he initially disowned, his quick rise and fall as mogul, and – most importantly – his wife Laurene, who showed him the power of love and connection. The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs seeks to capture the buzzing creative realm of Silicon Valley with a kinetic electro-acoustic score, lush vocal writing, a compelling non-linear narrative, and a production as innovative as the man himself.

“Santa Fe Opera’s impact on the creation and dissemination of new opera is simply astonishing, and I’ve been so thankful to visit several times over the past ten years,” said composer Mason Bates. “The superb productions of works new and old, combined with the stunning setting, have made it an essential pilgrimage for me. I’m honored to bring the story of Steve Jobs to this wonderful house and look forward to many more visits in the course of its creation.”

The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs is librettist Mark Campbell’s first collaboration with composer Mason Bates: “Mason’s brilliance at infusing the orchestra with electronica makes him uniquely poised to create a score for this opera that will evoke the innovative and mercurial nature of its subject,” said Campbell. “Audiences at Santa Fe Opera will be treated to a new kind of energy coming from the stage and the pit.” This production also signifies Campbell’s tertiary collaborations with both director Kevin Newbury and conductor Michael Christie, who with composer Kevin Puts, most recently collaborated on The Manchurian Candidate for Minnesota Opera.

This commission will receive its first workshop in San Francisco (September 2015) in collaboration with Cal Performances at UC Berkeley, and with additional support from San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Workshops play a key role in the commissioning process of Santa Fe Opera, illuminating what works well dramatically and musically, and allowing both composer and librettist to test their ideas before the work reaches the stage.