Pianist Ursula Oppens discusses the music of Laura Kaminsky and her new CD of Kaminsky’s works:
Read the article here.
Ursula Oppens on Laura Kaminsky
Laura Kaminsky
AS ONE most-produced opera in North America by a living composer
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.
Kaminsky named one of the top 35 female composers
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.
Santa Fe Opera Commissions Reed & Kaminsky
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.
Some Light Emerges premieres at Houston Grand Opera
The team that created the stunning new opera As One has reunited to create Some Light Emerges for Houston Grand Opera’s HGOCo. Premiering in March 2017, the opera celebrates the unique and enduring impact of Houston’s Rothko Chapel, which was created by painter Mark Rothko. A stunning octagonal structure that serves as a non-denominational chapel, the structure is filled with 14 paintings by Rothko, and was completed in 1971.
Houston Grand Opera shines “Light” on Rothko Chapel
A review from the Houston Chronicle, following the premiere of the new Kaminsky-Campbell-Reed opera, writes:
“Some Light Emerges, the new opera commissioned by Houston Grand Opera through its community collaborative initiative, dives right into Rothko and de Menil’s shared spiritual vision with plaintive, purposefully meandering music by Laura Kaminsky and an audacious libretto by Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed. The 75-minute chamber piece–written for seven singers and seven instruments–just might be the best articulation of the Rothko Chapel’s purpose in modern times … it’s nothing short of a pronunciation of American ideals. The piece remained sublime, a testament to both the performers and the writing.”
View excerpts from the premiere production.
Kaminsky/Campbell/Reed to write Georgia O’Keefe Opera
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.
Washington Post’s Lovable New Operas
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.
West Edge Opera brings AS ONE to the West Coast
As One illuminates the brave and painful growth of a transgender person, whose identity is still deemed “abnormal” and, more shamefully for our world, is barely recognized. The deeply normal need to unite body and soul within the boundaries of accepted human interactions has much to reveal to all of us.
As One premiered at The Brooklyn Academy of Music just this past September. It is based on the life experience of noted filmmaker Kimberly Reed.
Two singers, a baritone and a mezzo-soprano, together portray the character Hannah. The two singers embody a young boy who knows he is different but can’t understand how or why. The 70-minute opera traces the life of young Hannah through her eventual gender reassignment. It examines the life of a transgender person through poetry, movement, beautiful music and film in a new and especially touching way.
New York Classical Review called its premiere this past September a “rich addition to the repertoire … formidable on all fronts … As One is everything that we hope for in contemporary opera: topical, poignant, daring, and beautifully written.”
The New York Times wrote: “As One forces you to think, simultaneously challenging preconceptions and inspiring empathy…[with] winning humor and a satisfying emotional arc.”
A Day in the Life of Kimberly Reed, co-librettist of AS ONE
As One co-librettist and transgender filmmaker Kimberly Reed has created a video for the Op Ed page of The New York Times showing a day in her life – specifically April 7, when As One opened at Utah State University. In the video, Reed shows glimpses of the various ways she has attempted “to dispel misunderstanding and increase empathy” by introducing the quotidian stories of transgender individuals – through documentaries, news interviews, spoken word performances, and most recently through her work on As One.
AS ONE
With music and concept by Laura Kaminsky, libretto by Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed, the opera As One was given its premiere by American Opera Projects at the BAM Fisher Theater in September of 2014. The production featured a film by Kimberly Reed, and was universally praised for its honesty and originality.
A rich addition to the repertoire … formidable on all fronts … As One is everything that we hope for in contemporary opera: topical, poignant, daring, and beautifully written.”
– New York Classical Review
“Artistically distinguished, socially important … says so much with relatively modest means.”
– WQXR
As One, … satisfies in an entertaining and delicately moving way.”
– New York Observer
A piece that haunts and challenges its audience with questions about identity, authenticity, compassion and the human desire for self-love and peace.”
– Opera News
As One forces you to think, simultaneously challenging preconceptions and inspiring empathy…[with] winning humor and a satisfying emotional arc.”
– The New York Times
“Perfect Boy” from As One [excerpt] from American Opera Projects on Vimeo.
Instrumentation
Mezzo-Soprano, Baritone, String Quartet (requires a conductor, who plays a small role in the piece).
Materials
Order the CD
For additional information, visit the AS ONE website here.
Licensing
To obtain a quote on licensing As One for performance, please fill out a request here.
Opera News Interview with Laura Kaminsky on Premiere of Musical Opera As One
Kaminsky One of Eight Recipients of Opera America’s Grant for Female Composers
“A Christmas Story” [excerpt] from As One from American Opera Projects on Vimeo.
“Out of Nowhere” [excerpt] from As one from American Opera Projects on Vimeo.
Performances
- World Premiere: American Opera Projects; Brooklyn Academy of Music, Sept. 2014
- Caine College of the Arts, Utah State University, April 2015
- West Edge Opera, Oakland Metro Opera House, July-August 2015
- UrbanArias, Atlas Center for the Performing Arts, October 2015
- International Opera Projects, Ballsaal Studio, Berlin Germany, July 2016
- Seattle Opera, November 2016
- Pittsburgh Opera, February 2017
- Opera Colorado, March 2017
- Long Beach Opera, May 2017
- New Orleans Opera, June 2017
- San Diego Opera, Nov. 2017
- Chicago Fringe Opera, Nov. 2017
- Des Moines Metro Opera, Nov. 2017
- Lyric Opera of Kansas City, January 2018
- Boston Opera Collaborative, January 2018
- Hawaii Opera Theatre, January 2018
- Anchorage Opera, February 2018
- Skylark Opera Theater, March 2018
- AEPEX Contemporary Performance, April 2018
- Opera on the Avalon, May-June 2018
- Cincinnati Opera, July 2018
- Chautauqua Opera, August 2018
- Peabody Opera, Nov. 2018
- Alamo City Opera, Jan. 2019
- Portland Opera, March 2019
- Opera Idaho, May 2019
- Eugene Opera, May 2019
- Merkin Concert Hall/American Opera Projects/New York City Opera, May/June 2019
- Opera Memphis, August 2019
- Bay Chamber Concerts, August 2019
- Boston University, October 2019
- Alchemical Studios (NYC), November 2019
- Opera Columbus, November 2019
- Pensacola Opera, November 2019
- EarSpace, Feb. 2020
- Gertrude Opera (Australia), Feb. 2020
- Shenandoah Conservatory, April 2020
- University of South Carolina, April 2020
- Teatro Espanol, Madrid, Sept.-Oct. 2020
- Utomjordiska, October 2020
- Orchestre Classique de Montreal, November 2020
- Servicios Especializados en Distribucion Artistica, Madrid, March 2021
- University of Kansas, April 2021
- Opera Orlando, May 2021
- Painted Sky Opera, May 2021
- Opera Maine, July 2021
- Lontano Trust, London Premiere, Sept. 2021
- Sacramento State School of Music, Nov. 2021
- Lowell Chamber Orchestra, Nov. 2021
- Opera Santa Barbara, March 2022
- Universidad de los Andes, March-April 2022
- Atlanta Opera, June 2022
- Hawaii Performing Arts Festival, July 2022
- Satakunnan musiikkijuhlat (Finland), August 2022
- Opera Steamboat (CO), September, 2022
- Lyric Opera of the North (MN), October 2022
- Boston Conservatory at Berklee, February 2023
- Florida State Opera, May 2023
- Holy City Arts & Lyric Opera, June 2023
- Washburn University, October 2023
- Theater Regenburg, December 2023-March 2024
- Kentucky Opera, April 2024
Press
Denver Post, 2/25/2017
“As One” is the hottest title in opera right now, at least among the titles written in the last 100 years. The musical tale of a transgender woman’s personal evolution is somehow right on time–an accomplished bit of art-making, with considerable entertainment value, that thrusts itself smack into the current political and social discourse.
It’s in Denver this week week. Pittsburgh last. Seattle produced it in November and folks in New Orleans and Los Angeles get to hear it this spring. The chamber piece, which premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in late 2014, has a rare vitality in a business where new works–including the good ones–have to fight for even a second show.
Opera companies love it. One reason is that it’s relatively inexpensive to present: no chorus, orchestra or big sets. Composer Laura Kaminsky’s creation has just two singers, a string quartet and a couple of temporary screens that show films in the background.
But that’s why audiences seem to like it, too. It’s intimate. All the complaints so frequently lodged against the art form–that it can be distant, formal and out-of-touch, aren’t a factor for “As One.” Nor is length; it clocks in at just 75 minutes.
December 19, 2014 – Excellence in Opera (“Freddie”) Award
Operavore
December 18, 2014 – Slate
The Uses of “Trans” in Art
October 2, 2014 – GAY CITY NEWS
Opera review: “New Starts”
September 11, 2014 – OUT MAGAZINE
Opera review: “A Transgender Woman’s Operatic Path to Self-Acceptance”
September 10, 2014 – NY OBSERVER
Opera review: “An Emotional Before-and-After Opera of Gender Transformation Premieres at BAM”
September 9, 2014 – Q ON STAGE
Opera review: “Magnificent ‘As One'”
September 9, 2014 – THE FILM EXPERIENCE
Opera review: “Stage Door: ‘As One’ by Kimberly Reed”
September 2014 – OPERA NEWS
Opera review: “As One BROOKLYN American Opera Projects”
September 5, 2014 – THE NEW YORK TIMES
Opera review: “The Arc of a Transgender Life”
September 5, 2014 – NEW YORK CLASSICAL REVIEW
Opera review: “Kaminsky’s transgender opera “As One” makes a poignant and remarkable premiere”
September 5, 2014 – WQXR: OPERAVORE
Opera review: “Opera As One Explores Gender Change, Identity Struggles”
September 5, 2014 – PARTERRE.COM
Opera review: “outskirts”
September 4, 2014 – WWFM: CADENZA
Opera profile: “As One”
September 4, 2014 – HUFFINGTON POST
Opera profile: “‘As One’ Opera Brings Husband And Wife Stars Together For Heartfelt Transgender Role”
September 3, 2014 – GAY CITY NEWS
Opera profile: “The Voyage to Oneness”
September 2, 2014 – BK LIVE
Opera profile: Video Interview: “As One”
September 2, 2014 – BROOKLYN DAILY
Opera profile: “Husband and wife share role of transgender woman in new opera”
September 2014 – OPERA NEWS
Composer/Opera profile: “Hearing Both Sides”
Fall 2014 – OPERA AMERICA MAGAZINE
Composer/Opera profile: “Are Women Different?”
July 17, 2014 – THE ADVOCATE
Opera profile: “Husband and Wife to Share Role in Trans Opera”
July 10, 2014 – WQXR: OPERAVORE
Opera profile: “What to Hear in NYC Opera and Vocal Music”
