Composer Scott Wheeler Announces TWO Fall 2016 Premieres

NEW YORK, NY (For Release 8.2.16) - On the heels of releasing his latest album

Portraits & Tributes, award-winning composer/conductor/teacher Scott Wheeler

celebrates two new major works to be performed in fall 2016: Naga, his fourth opera, set

to a libretto by Cerise Jacobs, premiering September 10-17 in Boston; and Songs To Fill

The Void, a three-song cycle set to poetry by Robert Barefield, premiering October 2 in

New York City at Weill Recital Hall. In addition, the New Juilliard Ensemble conducted

by Joel Sachs will present his chamber symphony City of Shadows on October 1.

Hailed for his vocal and operatic music, Wheeler continues to find surprising new

connections between modern musical language and traditional classical technique. "It is

exciting to launch the new season with two premieres," says Wheeler. "The premiere of

Naga at Boston's Cutler Majestic Theater is the culmination of a long and rich history

with both Cerise Jacobs and Emerson College. I am proud to be able to invite audiences

to such a special place to hear such an extraordinary operatic collaboration."

Presented by ArtsEmerson, Naga is set to a libretto by Cerise Jacobs, co-commissioned

by Friends of Madame White Snake and Boston Lyric Opera, designed and directed by

the multi-media visual artist Michael Counts, and creatively produced by Beth Morrison

Projects. It marks Wheeler's fourth opera, succeeding others commissioned and presented

by the Metropolitan Opera/Lincoln Center Theatre, Washington National Opera, New

York City Opera, Forth Worth Opera, and Boston Conservatory Opera. According to

Wheeler, it was Verdi and Puccini's dramatic subtlety more than their vocal thrills that

attracted him to opera. "The avoidance of the vulgar, the ability to mingle comedy and

tragedy, the pervasive sense of musical and dramatic irony, achieves as much rich

humanity as the most elegant string quartet."

The following month on October 1, the New Juilliard Ensemble performs the chamber

symphony City of Shadows at Juilliard's Paul Hall. Dedicated to Kent Nagano, City of

Shadows was written for the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and became a sort of

universal urban portrait. As one of the great composers of song working today, Wheeler transforms

poetry into music that is universal, uplifting, and profoundly beautiful.

On October 2, baritone soloist Robert Barefield and pianist Carolyn Hague perform the New

York premiere of Wheeler's Songs To Fill The Void along with songs by fellow

American composers on themes of love and loss. The concert is the latest incarnation of

the 19-song album Songs To Fill The Void (Albany Records) released in May 2016.

"I'm both thrilled and honored to have collaborated with Scott Wheeler, whom I believe

to be one of the great composers of song working today," says Barefield. Wheeler notes

that "the collaboration between myself and singer/poet Robert Barefield is a way to bring

the singer-songwriter tradition into the classical world."

In 2014, Barefield and Hague commissioned Wheeler to set music to three poems written

by Robert about his partner of 19 years, Stephen Mazujian. The three-song cycle starts

with "Angkor Wat" narrating the story of Stephen's sudden death. "We Spoke of Music"

combines aspects of "Das Wandern," from Schubert's cycle Die schöne Müllerin and

"Listen to My Heart" by David Friedman, and talks about the love that Robert and

Stephen shared for music. "This song is a lighthearted consideration of how music helped

to bring together two men with very different musical backgrounds," says Wheeler.

"Unfathomable" is set as a passacaglia, "which I intended as a musical depiction of the

timelessness of love." Informed by the technique of his mentor Virgil Thomson,

Wheeler's natural and lucid text-setting has been described as "gorgeously

elegiac...lilting and tender" (Boston Phoenix).

Following another path pioneered by Thomson, Wheeler recently released Portraits &

Tributes (Bridge Records, 6/3/16), an aphoristic gallery of piano portrait pieces featuring

pianist Donald Berman. According to the Boston Globe, it "offers a stream of fresh and

inventive ideas, with hints of minimalism and ragtime...an enjoyably miscellaneous feel."

The recording is complemented by the video documentary Portraits: The Piano Music of

Scott Wheeler produced by filmmaker Fern Lopez. Slated for an August 2016 release on

iTunes, it spotlights the portraiture process. According to Lopez, "most documentaries

are just advertisements. This one asks a question: what exactly is a musical portrait? Can

it really depict the person?"

A distinctive voice of true integrity, Wheeler is a continual point of reference for

contemporary music. According to Gramophone, "the music of Scott Wheeler is rich in

just those qualities which we admire in ourselves and adore in others. It is warm,

earnestly and ardently tonal, with an elusive lyrical quality that makes it classical music

for sure." Wheeler draws from the dramatic works of Stephen Sondheim and Cy

Coleman, chamber works of Lee Hyla and Arthur Levering, and formal expressivity of

his enviable set of teachers: Lewis Spratlan, Arthur Berger, Olivier Messiaen, Peter

Maxwell Davies, and Virgil Thomson. Elements of shifting tonality, sound and texture,

dramatic timing, and narrative combine to create a musical language all his own.

About Scott Wheeler

Wheeler (b. 1952) is a Boston-based award-winning composer, conductor, and teacher

with a multi-faceted career. Although his chamber and orchestral music shows an

omnivorous range, it is his prominent profile as a composer of vocal and operatic music

that defines his career and artistic personality. His operas have been commissioned by the Metropolitan

Opera/Lincoln Center Theatre, Boston Lyric Opera, New York City Opera,

Washington National Opera, and Fort Worth Opera. He has received awards and

commissions from the Koussevitsky Foundation, the Fromm Foundation, American

Academy in Berlin, American Academy of Arts and Letters, Bogliasco Fellowship,

Tanglewood, Yaddo, and the MacDowell Colony, as well as the Stoeger Prize for

excellence in chamber music from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Wheeler's latest recording Portraits & Tributes (Bridge Records, 2016) features his piano

portraits and tributes performed by Donald Berman. His current projects include a set of

songs on texts of Paul Muldoon, the new opera Naga with libretto by Cerise Jacobs will

premiere by Beth Morrison Projects and Friends of Madame White Snake at Boston's

Cutler Majestic Theatre, and a new ballet with choreographer Melissa Barak. Wheeler

was recently featured on the Brooklyn Art Song Society's "IN Context Series," is an

Affiliate of NYU's Center for the Ballet and the Arts, and is Senior Distinguished Artist

in Residence at Boston's Emerson College, where he teaches musical theatre and

songwriting. scottwheeler.org

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