Gabriel Kahane’s new album, Book of Travelers, stems from an almost 9,000 mile journey by train where Kahane disconnected from digital life and connected with people, in person. Kahane was interviewed on PBS about the piece, and its genesis:
To hear samples of the recording, please click here.
Read The New Yorker’s Alex Ross about the piece.
A companion songbook is in preparation, and will be available soon.
Robert Paterson joins a distinguished group of American composers that have received the prestigious A.I. Dupont Composer’s award. Given for recognition of a composer who has made “a significant contribution to the field of contemporary music” by the Delaware Symphony, the orchestra will perform Paterson’s Dark Mountains on Sept. 28 and 30.
“I am humbled and honored to receive this award, which has been presented to a diverse and distinguished group of composers that ranges from Elliott Carter to John Adams to Andre Previn. Hearing this outstanding orchestra play my music will be a thrill and delight.” Read more about the award’s history here. You can listen to Dark Mountains here.
Musical polymath Glen Roven, an indefatigable composer of works for theater, opera, voice, orchestra and prolific record producer has passed away at the age of 61.
Roven first came to our attention with his charming settings of The Runaway Bunny and Goodnight Moon. His imaginative settings and unique ability to partner with prominent actors/singers gave the works a high profile and they have been performed dozens of times by various groups.
As the music director for both inaugurations of President Bill Clinton, Roven expected to repeat the task for the inauguration of Hillary Clinton. Shocked by the turnout of the 2016 election, Roven set some of Hillary Clinton’s speeches to music: The Hillary Speeches. It has consistently been one of his most performed works, coupled with a recording and video featuring two dozen prominent singers.
Roven’s recent works include his Symphony No. 2, a choral spiritual setting I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and Three Paintings by Agnes Martin. A memorial concert is planned for the fall of this year.
THIRTEEN’s Great Performances Presents the U.S. Broadcast Premiere of Peter Boyer’s “Ellis Island: The Dream of America” with Pacific Symphony Friday, June 29 on PBS in Honor of Immigrant Heritage Month
Features dramatic performances by Barry Bostwick, Camryn Manheim, Michael Nouri and other guest stars
THIRTEEN’s Great Performances and Pacific Symphony, led by Music Director Carl St.Clair, pay tribute to America’s history with a performance of composer Peter Boyer‘s “Ellis Island: The Dream of America,” a Grammy-nominated contemporary classical work celebrating the historic American immigrant experience. Great Performances – Ellis Island: The Dream of America with Pacific Symphony premieres nationwide Friday, June 29 at 10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings) in honor of Immigrant Heritage Month. It will be available to stream the following day via pbs.org/gperf and PBS apps.
Using texts from the Ellis Island Oral History Project and historic Ellis Island images in combination with an original orchestral score, “Ellis Island” features seven, first-hand stories of immigrants dramatically interpreted by guest stars Barry Bostwick, Camryn Manheim, Michael Nouri, Lesley Fera, Lucas Near-Verbrugghe, Samantha Sloyan and Kira Sternbach. Over 40 percent of the U.S. population can trace their ancestry through Ellis Island, and immigration remains at the forefront of global news. Great Performances – Ellis Island captures the emotions, elation and uncertainties of America’s epic immigrant experience.
The special was recorded by Great Performances at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in 2017 during Pacific Symphony’s 17th American Composers Festival. Peter Boyer’s “Ellis Island: The Dream of America” premiered in 2002 to great acclaim. It has since received nearly 200 performances by more than 80 orchestras, and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Classical Contemporary Composition in 2005.
A co-production of Pacific Symphony and THIRTEEN Productions LLC for WNET in association with PBS SoCal, Great Performances – Ellis Island: The Dream of America with Pacific Symphony was directed for stage and television by Matthew Diamond and produced by John Walker; with Shawn Murphy as audio producer, production design by Matt Steinbrenner, lighting design by Bob Barnhart and projection design by Perry Freeze. For Great Performances, Bill O’Donnell is series producer and David Horn is executive producer.
Major funding for the program is provided by The Ellis Island Honors Society, The Hal and Jeanette Segerstrom Family Foundation, the Jewish Federation and Family Services of Orange County, Nasser and Yvonne Kazeminy, and Seth & Yasuko Siegel and Blossom Siegel. Major funding for Great Performances is provided by the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Arts Fund, The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, the Irene Diamond Fund, the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust, The Agnes Varis Trust, The Starr Foundation, the Kate W. Cassidy Foundation, The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, Ellen and James S. Marcus, The Abra Prentice Foundation and PBS.
Great Performances is produced by THIRTEEN Productions LLC for WNET, one of America’s most prolific and respected public media providers. Throughout its more than 40-year history on public television, Great Performances has provided viewers across the country with an unparalleled showcase of the best in all genres of the performing arts, serving as America’s most prestigious and enduring broadcaster of cultural programming.
“A work of rare authenticity and directness”
Los Angeles Times
“A sweeping opus…Boyer’s masterwork”
The Buffalo News
“A searing emotional experience”
The Hartford Courant
Interested in performing Ellis Island? Request a rental quote here.
You can purchase a score here.
Opera America has posted a list of the top 25 operas performed in North America. Number 14 on the list is As One, (Kaminsky, Campbell, Reed) making it the top opera performed in 2016/17 by living writers. Dead Man Walking (Heggie, McNally) comes in as number 23.
Congratulations to Laura Kaminsky, Mark Campbell, Kimberly Reed, Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally! You can see the full list here.
Vivian Fung has been commissioned by the National Arts Centre of Canada to write a new work for the National Arts Centre Orchestra – premiere to take place on March 22, with subsequent performance in Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall. For the 2017-18 season, her orchestral works will be performed across North America including with the Toronto Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Stamford Symphony, Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, and Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony.
Dust Devils will have its West Coast premiere at the Cabrillo Festival this coming summer. Listen to the work here.
The San Diego Symphony recently premiered a new concert opener by David Bruce. The composer writes about his work:
I was honoured to be asked by San Diego Symphony to write a celebratory fanfare in honour of their departing maestro Jahja Ling, who conducted the premieres of my Night Parade and the Violin Concerto Fragile Light. The former of these pieces Jahja also brought to Carnegie Hall for the orchestra’s debut there, as well as on their tour of China in 2013. I enjoyed working with Maestro Ling, who had a firm but gentle approach, and the orchestra has clearly flourished under his tenure, with a raft of excellent younger players joining and creating his legacy for the future.
The fanfare is a 3 minute work for full orchestra. It’s called Fanfarrón, the Spanish word, said to be the origin of the word ‘fanfare’, which translates roughly as ‘show-off’ or ‘loud-mouth’ – a reference to the character of the music of course, rather than the man himself, who is anything but!
The Washington Post has released a list of the top 35 female composers working in classical music. Laura Kaminsky made the list, citing her distinguished career and, most notably, her opera As One.
The list goes back to 19th-century-born composers like Florence Price and Cecile Chamanade, and is a striking reminder of the wide range of talent and stylistic variety among these brilliant composers.
Opera for All Voices
Stories of our Time
a new initiative bringing stories with purpose to all audiences
Commissioned by a consortium of companies led by
Santa Fe Opera in association with San Francisco Opera:
• lyric opera of kansas city • minnesota opera • opera theatre of saint louis •san francisco opera • santa fe opera • sarasota opera • seattle opera
Santa Fe, NM – Santa Fe Opera announces the launch of Opera for All Voices: Stories of our Time, a new initiative committed to telling wide-ranging stories that resonate with all audiences, regardless of age or previous exposure to opera. The seven companies currently in the consortium will work together to commission new works that are flexible in scope and scale, with the potential to be performed in smaller venues and off the main stage while striving for rich storytelling and artistic integrity. The first new work will receive its premiere in 2019 at Santa Fe Opera, composed by Augusta Read Thomas with a libretto by Jason Kim. The second commission will be composed by Laura Kaminsky with a libretto by Kimberly Reed and is slated to premiere at San Francisco Opera in 2020.
Opera for All Voices was born out of the need for works with outstanding artistic quality that can still reach broad-ranging audiences by both accessibility of subject material and budgets. The project also addresses the serious need to bring new audiences to opera by commissioning important works that speak to all voices, designed with modern attention spans in mind, and the need to break down pre-conceived notions that opera is antiquated or elitist.
The teams behind the first two commissions were selected through a rigorous process with feedback from the participating companies. Both teams embody the spirit of the initiative in their previous works, telling stories with purpose through music.
Peter Boyer’s Grammy-nominated work Ellis Island: The Dream of America will be produced as a program for PBS’ Great Performances, America’s preeminent performing arts television series, with Pacific Symphony.
The Ellis Island performances with Pacific Symphony, conducted by Music Director Carl St.Clair, on April 7th and 8th, 2017 at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa, from their annual American Composers Festival, will be filmed for a national broadcast debut on PBS’ Great Performances in the 2017-18 season, with subsequent broadcasts planned over the next three years.
The actors will be:
• Tony Award-winning Barry Bostwick (“Spin City,” “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” the original Broadway “Grease”)
• Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning Camryn Manheim (“The Practice,” “Ghost Whisperer,” “Elvis”)
• Michael Nouri (“Flashdance,” “The Proposal,” “Finding Forrester,” “Damages”)
• Lesley Fera (“Pretty Little Liars,” “24,” “CSI: Miami”)
• Samantha Sloyan (“Scandal,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Hush”)
• Lucas Near-Verbrugghe (“Our Idiot Brother,” “Lazy Eye”)
• Kira Sternbach (“Neighbors,” “My Normal”)
Each of these actors will read the words from one of the real American immigrant stories which Boyer adapted from the Ellis Island Oral History Project. All the actors will participate in the reading of “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus (“Give me your tired, your poor…”), the sonnet associated with the Statue of Liberty, which serves as the work’s Epilogue.
The producer of Ellis Island on Great Performances is John Walker, who has received fourteen Emmy nominations and two Emmy wins for his remarkable body of work. The director is Matthew Diamond, whose directing credits range from The Metropolitan Opera HD Live to The Wiz Live. The recording engineer will be Shawn Murphy, renowned for his work for composers such as John Williams and James Newton Howard.
Orchestras included in PBS’ Great Performances series in recent seasons have included some of the world’s finest: The New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic (their John Williams tribute), and Vienna Philharmonic. With this filming and later broadcast of Boyer’s Ellis Island, Pacific Symphony joins this elite company. This will be the first-ever national television broadcast from the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall.
Read The Orange County Register’s feature on Peter Boyer and Ellis Island.
