Calendar

The January 22 Le Salon de Musique program will feature “A La Cour De Versailles“ Baroque Program with a pantomime for two dancers (Linda Tomko And Jill Chadroff) with a Baroque ensemble performing Marie-Antoinette, Rameau, Duphly, Gluck, Grety, Lully and Ferrere featuring Mezzo-Soprano Monika Bruckner, Susan Feldman on Violin, Leif Thomas on Viola da Gamba and Patricia Mabee on Harpsichord. The performance is accompanied by Champagne, food by Patina and informal conversation introduced by musicologist Julius Reder Carlson. Tickets are $65 and $45 for students (including concert and refreshments) and are available on line at www.LeSalondeMusiques.com or by calling (310) 498-0257.

This program presents a concert of the type that Marie-Antoinette would have witnessed at her own salon de musiques in the 1780s.

By removing the stage, Le Salon de Musiques offers a more personal touch to listeners eager to familiarize themselves with Chamber Music. The goal is to bring together an audience of disparate backgrounds…music lovers who believe that this form of melodic artistry brings out the best in humanity.

Where:
Dorothy Chandler Pavilion – Fifth Floor
135 North Grand Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Tickets:
$65.00
$45.00 Students
There is a 10% discount if tickets are purchased for three or more concerts

Contact:
www.lesalondemusiques.com or (310) 498-0257

From a book-length poem to a multi-media experimental opera to its current incarnation as a CD, DARKLING gives a haunting portrayal of emotion, terror, and incalculable loss. DARKLING movingly evokes the memory of the Holocaust as well as the human cost of man-made and natural cataclysmic events. Join us for the CD Release at Drom NYC on Nov. 22nd at 6:30 pm.

Sunday, October 2 – 4:00 p.m. & 7:30 p.m.
Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse
Rose Building, Lincoln Center, 10th Floor
65th Street and Amsterdam Avenue

American Opera Projects presents

MODEL LOVE
or How the Young and Fashionable Are Feeling This Season
a staged song cycle
music by J. David Jackson
texts by Henry Normal
Performances by wildirishrose99, brandtxxx and littleloverboy007.
With the MODEL LOVE CHAMBER ORCHESTRA & ROCK BAND
Meet the artists: http://bit.ly/raCnaB

Fun, energetic and curious song cycle in need of the right audience. R U what I M looking 4? Not one for labels but people have called me contemporary art music with rock, jazz and blues. You can call me whatever or whenever you like. Interested in M-M-W threesome? I’m all of that too. Must have good sense of humor. Let’s just relax…become friends & get to know each other… and see what happens.

NORA, IN THE GREAT OUTDOORS
A one-act monodrama for soprano and chamber ensemble
Music by Daniel Felsenfeld
Libretto by Will Eno
Starring Kirsten Chambers as Nora
Conducted by Keith Chambers
With Rose Bellini (cello), Mila Henry (piano), and Josh Modney (violin)

Composers & the Voice alum Daniel Felsenfeld teams with award-winning playwright Will Eno(Middletown, THOM PAIN (based on nothing)) in this new monodrama that imagines the continuation of one the greatest plays of all time.

RUNNING TIME:
75 minutes with intermission

ADMISSION: $20 general admission, $50 VIP reserve seating
Tickets: http://modellove2011.eventbrite.com/

Brooklyn’s Opera on Tap and American Opera Projects “book” Galapagos Art Space for an evening of music based on texts of Brooklyn writers

Sunday, September 18, 7:00pm–Discussion with Robert Levine, 6:00pm

Galapagos Art Space–16 Main Street at Water Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn, NY

Directions: www.galapagosartspace.com—Subway-F train to York Street; A/C train to High Street

Tickets: Advance:$15; Door: $200–www.galapagosartspace.com

Info: www.operaprojects.org/operagrowsinbrooklyn and www.operaonta.com/newyork

Two new operatic monodramas featuring two iconic mothers will receive their first public concert readings a day after Mother’s Day.  Nora, In the Great Outdoors, music by Daniel Felsenfeld and libretto by Will Eno, continues the final scene of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House moments after Nora abandons her family; and The Wanton Sublime, music by Tarik O’Regan and libretto by Anna Rabinowitz, explores the mythic and human aspects of Mary, mother of Jesus. The evening will feature performances by soprano Caroline Worra (The Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, Boston Lyric, Glimmerglass) and Amy Shoremount-Obra with music direction by Mila Henry. Both one-act operas have been commissioned by the Brooklyn-based opera development company AMERICAN OPERA PROJECTS (AOP) and will be presented by the organization at The Players (16 Gramercy Park South) on Monday, May 9 at 8pm in New York City, and at South Oxford Space (138 South Oxford St.) on Thursday, May 12 at 8pm in Brooklyn.  Both will feature a panel discussion with the artists.  Tickets are $20; $10 for Players NYC members or Students/Seniors.  Tickets and more info are available at www.operaprojects.org.

Baltimore, MD – On April 1 and 2 at the University of Baltimore’s Performing Arts Theater, The Figaro Project will present its “Contemporary Opera Trio,” three world-premiere one-act operas written by Baltimore-based composers. The production will be performed free to the public.

Operas include Paul Mathews’ crime drama “Piecing it Apart,” Douglas Buchanan’s creation myth “Lux et Tenebrae,” and Joshua Bornfield’s political comedy “Strong like Bull.” Featuring thirteen local performers and accompanied by piano trio, the operas will be fully-staged and sung in English. Jim Stopher will conduct.

After The Figaro Project’s inaugural season, founder Caitlin Vincent pursued an ambitious program of contemporary opera for the troupe’s second season. She formed a collaborative partnership with three Peabody composers, including Peabody Dean of Academic Affairs, Paul Mathews, with the goal of exposing the Baltimore region to new opera in an accessible way.

Mathews notes, “The Figaro Project has prepared these operas for their first hearings as if they were staples of the repertoire. Singers may dream of Italian arias, but real artists engage the problems of our world with the language and idioms of our time. ”

“All opera was once new,” says Vincent, “and this is an opportunity to experience three new operas that were conceived and created right in the heart of Baltimore.”

What: The Figaro Project’s Contemporary Opera Trio
When: Friday, April 1 and Saturday, April 2 at 7:30pm
Where: University of Baltimore’s Performing Arts Theater – 21 West Mt. Royal Avenue
Admission: Free

About The Figaro Project

Founded in June 2009 with grants from the Peabody Institute and The Johns Hopkins University, The Figaro Project is dedicated to giving performing opportunities to young opera singers and presenting opera in an accessible and affordable way. For more information, please visit www.thefigaroproject.com.

Renegade chamber opera company OperaHub concludes its season-long celebration of opera with a fully-staged production of The Four-Note Opera—Tom Johnson’s lovingly subversive, hilariously tongue-in-cheek one-act salute to the genre—collaboratively created by OperaHub’s inaugural Resident Company. More information at http://www.operahub.org

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Performances: 8pm on Thursday, March 3; 8pm on Friday, March 4; 3pm + 8pm on Saturday, March 5 at the Plaza Theatre at the Boston Center for the Arts, 539 Tremont Street, Boston.

FREE ADMISSION! In the spirit of accessible opera for all, tickets are absolutely free and may be reserved in advance by emailing tickets@operahub.org with your name, phone number, requested performance date, and number of seats

LIVE OAK THEATRE, BERKELEY, JUNE 17-20, 2010

X AT THE HEART OF AMERICA / X IN THE SOUL OF EUROPE AND BEYOND

Goat Hall Productions / San Francisco Cabaret Opera celebrates its 10th Annual Fresh Voices Festival of New Works 2010 with four evenings (two programs) of real-life stories of loneliness and alienation, the spirit of adventure and the will to survive (America) and dark re-creations of old tales with new twists (Europe and Beyond).

Ten fully-staged short operas will Xplore: an erotic transformation in Hungary; starving artists in a sideshow in Czechoslovakia; a pioneer woman in Nebraska driven mad by loneliness; an Xpresident disintegrating in America. And more!

Program A (June 17 and 19, 8pm)
X at the Heart of America
Featuring the WORLD PREMIERE of *Trifles, John G. Bilotta/John F. McGrew
(from the story and play by Susan Glaspell)
George Bush: The Last 100 Days, Chris Whittaker
Life is Fine, Edward Knight/Langston Hughes
X in the Soul of Europe and Beyond
**The Bloody Chamber, Daniel Felsenfeld/Elizabeth Isadora Gold
Job: a Masque, by Mark Alburger

Program B (June 18, 8 pm and June 20, 7 pm)
X in the Soul of Europe and Beyond
The Hunger Art, Jeff Myers/Royce Vavrek
Medea Alone, David Garner
Theresa Kren, Mark Narins
X at the Heart of America
Letter from Linda, Alden Jenks/Frank Polite
Sutter Creek, Robert Denham

WHEN:

One Weekend Only: June 17-20, 2010
Thursday, June 17 – 8 pm
Friday, June 18 – 8 pm
Saturday, June 19 – 8 pm
Sunday, June 20 – 7 pm

WHERE:

Live Oak Theatre, 1301 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley (above Rose Street)

TICKETS:

Advance tickets: $20 general admission/$15 seniors/students
Tickets at door: $25 general admission/$20 seniors/students
Reserve tickets online @ www.goathall.org or call 415-289-6877

MORE INFORMATION:

Composers: Ten composers, two from New York, one from Pennsylvania, one from Okalahoma, and six local composers: Mark Alburger, John G. Bilotta, Robert Denham, David Garner, Alden Jenks, Mark Narins

Artistic Director: Harriet March Page
Pianists: Hadley McCarroll, Keisuke Nakagoshi
Stage Directors: Mark Alburger, Meghan Dibble, Ross Halper, Harriet March Page
Conductors: Martha Stoddard, Hadley McCarroll, Keisuke Nakagoshi
Lighting Designer: Delayne Medoff

PLUS:

Twenty-two amazing and brave local professional singers, including Eliza OMalley, Jo Vincent Parks, Indre Viskontas, Raina Simons, Michael Desnoyers, Nathaniel Marken, Maria Mikheyenko, Katherine Howell, Justin Marsh and Meghan Dibble.

** The Bloody Chamber – Libretto by Elizabeth Isadora Gold, adapted from the novella by Angela Carter.”

*Trifles is sponsored in part through Subito, the quick advancement grant program of the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the American Composers Forum.

MORE ABOUT TRIFLES , JOHN G. BILOTTA, COMPOSER

The Susan Glaspell Society has invited the composer to discuss the operatic setting of the play at the 20th Annual American Literature Conference in late May, 2010. Members of the Society and the ALA Conference will attend an open rehearsal of the opera during the conference. This production is also linking up with the public schools, where Susan Glaspell’s story is still read, and the composer will be speaking with students as part of their study unit on “A Jury of Her Peers”.

The Susan Glaspell Society was formed in 2003, following a year of exciting Glaspell conference panels at the American Theatre and Drama Society section of the American Literature Association Conference in Boston and at the Twentieth Century Literature Conference in Louisville. The SG Society reflects the continued growth of Glaspell scholarship as more and more academics, scholars, theatre professionals, and general readers realize that Glaspell is a major American woman writer whose remarkable body of work — drama, journalism, short fiction, and novels — has been too long overlooked.

Born in Davenport, Iowa, in 1876, Susan Glaspell rebelled against society’s expectations and, rather than passively wait for a husband to appear, went to Drake University in Des Moines, graduating in June of 1899, and then worked as a reporter for the Des Moines Daily News, where she covered the murder trial of a farmwife accused of murdering her husband, the murder on which “Trifles” is based. One of the most frequently performed one-act plays in schools, colleges, and community theaters, “Trifles” has also been filmed no fewer than five times, including a television adaptation by Alfred Hitchcock.

To most readers Susan Glaspell (1876-1948) is still known primarily as the author of “Trifles,” the frequently anthologized, classic feminist play about two women’s secret discovery of a wife’s murder of her husband, or the short-story “A Jury of Her Peers,” a re-writing of that piece. But Glaspell wrote over fifty short stories, nine novels, fourteen plays, and one biography. In 1931 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her play “Alison’s House.” Glaspell was the co-founder of the Provincetown Players (1916-1922) with her husband George Cram Cook.

Composer Whitney George brings her exciting one-act opera The Yellow Wallpaper to stage with a large chamber ensemble comprised of rising NYC performers. Based on the proto-feminist short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper tells the story of a woman’s descent to madness through her obsession with a wallpaper and an oppressive husband. George’s setting mirrors the conflict between the man and woman by employing a divided chamber ensemble utilizing an extraordinary palette of tone colors, musical styles and composition techniques. The performance takes place on Sunday, March 28th, at 7:30pm at the Tank, 354 W45th St., NYC. Admission is $10, $5 for students.
“The Yellow Wallpaper is a strange and thrilling work. The music is elegant, and simultaneously engages and surprises the listener, in every way heightening the already quite eerie text.” – Ursula Oppens
The Yellow Wallpaper was developed by George as part of her residency with CUNY’s Contemporary Music Ensemble, directed by pianist Ursula Oppens. George adapted the libretto herself, and was intimately involved in all aspects of the production. Working with a tight-knit group of dedicated performers, George was able to draw on her experience as a composer, producer and visual artist to create a truly interdisciplinary work where the tones, text and set design work together and inform and enhance each other. George’s panache for eclectic mixed ensembles is evident in the unusual instrumentation supporting a single female singer and single male actor. Utilizing flute, bass clarinet, violin, cello, bass, celeste, harpsichord, vibraphone, crotales and percussion, George uses the ensemble deftly, creating a myriad of textures out of the infinite combinations it allows for. The result is a truly unique piece of contemporary music that harkens back to her influences such as Bartok, John Corigliano and Danny Elfman while pushing bravely forward.
“[Whitney George's] music challenges and delights.”- Jason Eckardt, composer
Whitney George, composer, was first introduced to music through instrumental performance on flute at age 10. Her focus shifted to composition after taking a music theory course at age 16. For her first two years of Undergraduate study at California State University: Chico, her focus was on instrumental performance. CSU: Chico commissioned two original works for wind ensemble before she continued her Undergraduate study at the California Institute of the Arts. While there, George focused on interdisciplinary collaboration: fusing music and other fine arts in an effort to more clearly communicate with an audience. Such goals led to the self-production of a full-length opera titled “Alphabephobia: Something Goes Wrong Everyday”, which includes animation, dance and theater alongside music. Her music, performance art, and installations have had both international and domestic premieres, primarily in England and the East and West coasts of the US. This academic year, George’s works will be premiered at Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music where she is currently working towards her Master’s degree, studying with Jason Eckardt and Tania Leon. Her current interdisciplinary projects  set to premiere in the spring of 2010 include “The Yellow Wallpaper”, an opera based on the short story of the same title, and an original score for the 1928 American silent film “The Tell-Tale Heart”, based on the Poe short story.

Wednesday, May 26-Friday, May 28, 8pm: The staged production of Pascal Dusapin’s chamber opera “To Be Sung,” in its West Coast Premiere.

This haunting work, with text by Gertrude Stein, is a kaleidoscope of colors and textures for both voices and instruments; by turns whimsical, dramatic and poignant. Since its 1993 premiere, To Be Sung has been presented more than fifty times throughout Europe.

The cast features singers from from UCSD’s graduate program, along with UCSD faculty member Philip Larson. Directed by Susan Narucki (one of the works’ original cast members), To Be Sung takes place in the Department’s new experimental theatre in the Conrad Prebys Music Center. Guest conductor Julian Pellicano leads members of the Department’s new music group Palimpsest.

Conrad Prebys Music Center Experimental Theatre, 7PM: $25 general, 20% discount for UCSD faculty, staff, students. Subscription tickets also available at a greater discount. Tickets available at UCSD Box Office (858.534.TIXS) or at the door.