The five-time Grammy Award-winning San Francisco Girls Chorus--Lisa Bielawa, Artistic Director and Valérie Sainte-Agathe, Music Director and Principal Conductor-continues its 35th anniversary season with a fully staged production of Benjamin Britten's 1957 opera Noye's Fludde, based on the biblical deluge story, in one performance only, tonight, March 29, 2014, at 8 pm at Temple Emanu-El in San Francisco.
Conducted by Ms. Sainte-Agathe, the cast will feature guest artists Carey Perloff as The Voice of God, bass-baritone Joe Chappell as Noah, mezzo-soprano Silvie Jensen as Mrs. Noah and other soloist roles performed by members of the San Francisco Girls Chorus, to be announced. The production will be staged by Ariel Craft and will feature original art, costumes and set pieces created by members of San Francisco's acclaimed Creativity Explored, supported by a grant from the Creative Work Fund. The evening features the performance and includes a cocktail party and dinner to benefit the San Francisco Girls Chorus. For information and tickets, visit www.sfgirlschorus.org.
Benjamin Britten's inventive re-telling of the biblical story of Noah and the flood is based on a 15thcentury miracle play from an English source. The Voice of God tells Noah to build a ship, and the cast comprises Noah's scoffing, slacking wife and family and the host of animals to be carried on the ark once the prophesied flood arrives, its commencement heralded by the sound of clinking teacups representing the first rain drops.
Tickets are priced $30 and $18(students) and are available for purchase through City Box Office; by phone at 415-392-4400; online at
www.cityboxoffice.com; or in person at City Box Office, 180 Redwood Street, Suite 100, San Francisco (Monday - Friday, 9:30am-5pm). Tickets for the gala benefit evening include the special performance of
Noye's Fludde following the dinner and live auction. Individual tickets start at $300 and may be purchased by contacting Cathy Lewis at (415) 863-1752, x 306 or clewis@sfgirlschorus.org.
About the Artists
Carey Perloff is celebrating her 20th year as artistic director of American Conservatory Theatre, where she most recently directed
Elektra,
Endgame and Play, Scorched, The Homecoming, Tosca Cafe (cocreated with choreographer Val Caniparoli and recently toured Canada), and Racine's
Phèdre. Known for directing innovative productions of classics and championing new writing for the theater, Perloff has also directed for A.C.T. José Rivera's
Boleros for the Disenchanted; the world premieres of Philip Kan Gotanda's
After the War (A.C.T. commission) and her own adaptation (with Paul Walsh) of
A Christmas Carol; the American premieres of Tom Stoppard's
The Invention of Love and
Indian Ink and Harold Pinter's
Celebration; A.C.T.-commissioned translations/adaptations of
Hecuba, The Misanthrope, Enrico IV, Mary Stuart, Uncle Vanya, A Mother, and
The Voysey Inheritance (adapted by David Mamet); the world premiere of Leslie Ayvazian's
Singer's Boy; and major revivals of
'Tis Pity She's a Whore, The Government Inspector, Happy End(including a critically acclaimed cast album recording),
A Doll's House, Waiting for Godot, The Three Sisters, The Threepenny Opera, Old Times, The Rose Tattoo, Antigone, Creditors, The Room, Home, The Tempest, and Stoppard's
Rock 'n' Roll, Travesties, The Real Thing, Night and Day, and
Arcadia. Perloff 's work for A.C.T. also includes Marie Ndiaye's
Hilda, the world premieres of Marc Blitzstein's
No for an Answer and David Lang/Mac Wellman's
The Difficulty of Crossing a Field, and the West Coast premiere of her own play
The Colossus of Rhodes (Susan Smith Blackburn Award finalist). Her play
Luminescence Dating premiered in New York at The Ensemble Studio Theatre, was coproduced by A.C.T. and Magic Theatre, and is published by Dramatists Play Service. Her play
Waiting for the Flood has received workshops at A.C.T., New York Stage & Film, and Roundabout Theatre Company. Her latest play,
Higher, was developed at New York Stage and Film and presented at San Francisco's Contemporary Jewish Museum in 2010; it won the 2011 Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation Theatre Visions Fund Award and received its world premiere in February 2012 in San Francisco. Her one-act
The Morning After was a finalist for the Heideman Award at Actors Theatre of Louisville. Perloff has collaborated as a director on new plays by many notable writers, including Gotanda, Nilo Cruz, and Robert O'Hara. She also directed
Elektra for the Getty Villa in Los Angeles. Before joining A.C.T., Perloff was artistic director of Classic Stage Company inNew York, where she directed the world premiere of Ezra Pound's
Elektra, the American premiere of Pinter's
Mountain Language, and many classic works. Under Perloff 's leadership, CSC won numerous OBIE Awards, including the 1988 OBIE for artistic excellence. In 1993, she directed the world premiere of Steve Reich and Beryl Korot's opera
The Cave at the Vienna Festival and Brooklyn Academy of Music. A recipient of France's
Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and the National Corporate Theatre Fund's 2007 Artistic Achievement Award, Perloff received a B.A. Phi Beta Kappa in classics and comparative literature from Stanford University and was a Fulbright Fellow at Oxford. She was on the faculty of the Tisch Schoolof the Arts at New York University for seven years and teaches and directs in the A.C.T. Master of Fine Arts Program.
Bass-baritone
Joe Damon Chappel, a native of Nashville, Tennessee, is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester. At Eastman, he was a William Warfield Scholar and had many solo credits with the Eastman Chorale and the Eastman Opera Theater. He is the principal bass soloist with Bach Vespers at Holy Trinity (NYC), and is an accomplished specialist in the performance of Bach's cantatas, passion settings, and other large works. In 2008, Maestro Georg Cristoph Biller, Bach's current living successor as Kantor of Thomaskirche, Leipzig, was a visiting guest conductor at Holy Trinity, and Mr. Chappel was honored to work with him on several cantatas as a featured soloist. He has also performed with groups such as Bachworks, NY Collegium, Early Music New York, Les Gouts-Reunis, Vox Vocal Ensemble and The Tiffany Consort (founding member), an 8-member ensemble of soloists which received a 2006 Grammy nomination for its debut recording project, O Magnum Mysterium. As a member of the Carolina Chamber Chorale (C3) at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC, he was bass soloist in world premieres by American composers Dan Locklair and Anthony Davis. Mr. Chappel sang his first Verdi Requiem with the South Carolina Philharmonic, Nicholas Smith, conductor. Subsequently, he and Maestro Smith have worked on several projects, including a Verdi Requiem at the Bollington Festival (UK), the Palmetto Opera's production of
Marriage of Figaro (as Figaro), and a return to the South Carolina Philharmonic as soloist in Walton's
Belshazzar's Feast.
A champion of new and/or rarely heard music, Mr. Chappel is frequently sought as a soloist in world premieres of newly written or newly discovered works. In 2007, he made his Lincoln Center debut as bass soloist in the world premiere of Andrew Fowler's
Directions for Singing. In 2006, he gave the New World premiere of a recently unearthed Kuhnau mass for solo Bass and strings. He has performed several works composed around the events of 9/11, including the role of the Pilot in the world premiere of Anthony Davis'
Restless Mourning at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival, and the world premiere of Joelle Wallach's
Firefighter's Prayer at Powell Hall as part of the Saint Louis Symphony's "On Stage at Powell" recital series. In 2008 he performed Orestes/Athena in the U.S. premiere of Iannis Xenakis'
Oresteia at Miller Theater, Columbia University.
Recent projects include singing in the Bard Summerscape 2011 production of Richard Strauss'
Die Liebe der Danae, and the Bard Music Festival men's chorus. In February 2012, Mr. Chappel will join Maestro Erickson for several performances at the Boulder Bach Festival, and in the spring he will join Phillip Glass, the Phillip Glass Ensemble, and acclaimed director Robert Wilson in the world tour of
Einstein on the Beach, a year-long project with performances throughout Europe, North and Latin America.
A vocalist of great versatility, mezzo-soprano
Silvie Jensen enjoys a wide-ranging career, which includes early and contemporary music, opera and musical theater, and ethnic, improvised, and experimental music.
As a soloist, she has appeared with Ornette Coleman at London's Barbican Centre, with Meredith Monk at Zankel Hall and Teatro Comunale Ferarra, in Handel's
Messiah at Trinity Wall Street, and in classical and contemporary works at Brooklyn Academy of Music with Sir Jonathan Miller and Paul Goodwin, Ash Lawn Opera, Stonington Opera House, Riverside Opera, American Chamber Opera, Clarion Society, Alice Tully Hall, Miller Theater, One World Symphony, Voices of Ascension, and with Broadway Bach Ensemble singing Mahler's 4th Symphony and Canteloube's
Songs of the Auvergne. Her performance in Hildegard von Bingen's chant opera
Ordo Virtutum, under the direction of Drew Minter, as well as many of her performances as a soloist with Christopher Caines Dance Company, have been critically acclaimed.
Ms. Jensen is a frequent collaborator with composers and artists in other genres; she has commissioned and premiered works created specifically for her, and has presented solo recitals and chamber music at Weill Hall, Steinway Hall, Symphony Space, Americas Society, Liederkranz Club, Bonhams, the Stone, the Cell Theater and Nicholas Roerich Museum. She is an alumna of the San Francisco Girls Chorus.
Ariel Craft is a freelance director located in the Bay Area, is Artistic Director of Bigger Than a Breadbox Theatre Co., a San Francisco-based production company, and her work can regularly be seen in downtown SF black box spaces. Recent directing credits include
Robot Hand,
Landscape of the Body and
How I Learned to Drive. Ms. Craft holds a BFA in Theatre from New York University and served as the American Conservatory Theater's Artistic Fellow for the 2012/2013 season.
Believing that all people have the ability to create, and that visual artistic expression is a viable means to enhance personal identity and growth, Florence Ludins-Katz and Elias Katz founded
Creativity Explored in 1983. Its second studio site was opened in 1995 to provide adults with severe disabilities an opportunity to create visual art.
People have been able to view and purchase art from its studios since Creativity Explored's inception. An on-site gallery opened in 2001 providing the public the opportunity to view work exhibited in a professional setting. Gallery programming now includes six diverse exhibitions per year with more than 10,000 people visiting the gallery and studio annually.
Many Creativity Explored studio artists have developed meaningful arts practices and are now becoming increasingly recognized for their contributions to the contemporary art world. In addition to participating in numerous group exhibitions in the Bay Area, Creativity Explored artists have had one-person gallery shows in New Zealand and Australia. Several artists' works has]ve been included in international group exhibitions, as well as in commercial and nonprofit venues across the nation. Most recently, nine Creativity Explored artists were exhibited in UC Berkeley Art Museum's traveling group exhibition,
Create.
Creativity Explored's gallery operation continues to expand, encompassing a growing array of art products (notecards, books, and t-shirts) and our popular online web store. In addition, our related Art Services and Licensing Programs have expanded studio artists' commercial success and visibility within retail and residential development markets.
With a spirit of openness and transparency, Creativity Explored recognizes that collaboration will create new and exciting opportunities for artists with developmental disabilities, both nationally and internationally, and will mutually benefit partnering organizations.
