Concert Performance of LA REINA Set for 2016 Prototype Festival

American Lyric Theater (ALT), in partnership with the Prototype Festival, announced today that an orchestral concert performance of La Reina, a work in development at ALT, will be part of the 2016 Prototype Festival in New York City.

La Reina is an electro-acoustic opera with text in Spanish and English. Drawing its narrative from the drug trade in Mexico and the United States, the opera is inspired by some of the most vivid real life players in this increasingly violent war from the past and present. Composer Jorge Sosa's music blends classically trained voices with a chamber orchestra of acoustic and electronic forces, powerfully conveying a gripping libretto by Sosa and his collaborator, Laura Sosa Pedroza.

The January concert of La Reina is presented as part of American Lyric Theater's InsightALT series, which features operas in concert at various stages of their development. The concert is the culminating event of an extensive orchestral workshop, and will conclude with a detailed process-based discussion with the composer and librettist, moderated by ALT's Founder and Producing Artistic Director, Lawrence Edelson. Additional InsightALT concerts for the 2015-16 season will be announced later this summer.

Led by conductor Andrew Bisantz, the principal cast for La Reina includes mezzo-soprano Audrey Babcock in the lead role of "Regina", with baritone Christopher Burchett, soprano Rosa Betancourt and tenor Javier Abreu.

Commissioned by American Lyric Theater in 2012, La Reina has been developed under the auspices of the Composer Librettist Development Program. As part of ALT's unique commissioning and development process, ALT produced a libretto workshop in 2012 of the opera and a piano/vocal workshop in 2013.

InsightALT: La Reina
Part of The Prototype Festival
Co-Presented with the French Institute Alliance Française

Sunday, January 17, 2016
5:00 pm
Florence Gould Hall
The French Institute Alliance Française
22 East 60th Street
New York, NY 10022

ABOUT JORGE SOSA
Jorge Sosa is a Mexican-born composer currently residing in New York. He is thrilled to be back as resident composer with the NYU New Music Ensemble for this season. Jorge's first full-length opera, La Reina, commissioned by the American Lyric Theater (ALT), was selected for the Fort Worth Opera 2015 Frontiers Festival. La Reina was performed in a concert version during ALT's Insight Festival in 2013. In 2014 Jorge's works Enchantment and Stray Birds for chamber ensemble and live electronics were premiered at the Difrazzione festival in Florence. Enchantment will be included in Esther Lameneck's upcoming CD in 2015. In 2014 Jorge's operatic setting of Man Ray's film "L'Etoile de Mer" was premiered in Kansas City by the Black House Collective, receiving critical acclaim. The legendary clarinetist David Krakauer and pianist Kathy Tagg premiered Jorge's Psalm of David in 2013 at The Stone in New York City. In 2012, Jorge was commissioned to write his "Song of the Last Crossing", which was included in the OPERA America Songbook. His Trés Sonetos de Quevedo for soprano and guitar quartet were recently released by the Cuarteto de Guitarras de la Ciudad de México in their CD A Cinco and were selected to be performed at the Foro de Música Nueva Manuel Enriquez in Mexico City, 2015. Jorge's Refraction I was included in the CD "Quirk" by clarinetist Mauricio Salguero. His CDs "Plastic Time" and "Enceladus" are available on all the major music download sites and through the website www.jorgesosa.com. Jorge is currently Assistant Professor of music at Molloy College in Long Island.

ABOUT LAURA SOSA PEDROZA
Laura Sosa Pedroza is a bilingual Mexican screenwriter who has worked primarily in film and television. She is co-writer of En el país de no pasa nada, selected as the winner of the Best Movie category by the OCIC jury in Guadalajara's Film Festival in 2000. She has participated in numerous TV shows as co-writer, including Todo por amor (TV Azteca-Argos, 2000); Momento de decision (Series TV Azteca-Argos, 1999); Ladrón de corazones (Telemundo-Argos, 2003); Corazón partido (Telemundo-Argos, 2005); Zapata, amor en rebeldía (Telemundo-Argos, 2006); Mientras haya vida (Azteca-Argos, 2007); Vivir sin ti (TV Azteca-Argos, 2008); Secretos del alma (TV Azteca, 2009); Las Aparicio (Cadena Tres-Argos, 2010); El sexo débil (Cadena Tres-Argos, 2011). She was head writer for Gitanas, a soap opera awarded best adaptation by the international FyMT in 2004, and was the story producer of the first season of Capadocia (HBO-Argos), which was nominated for best drama series in 2009 at the International Emmy Awards. She is also the author of several episodes of Capadocia on the first, second and third seasons. In the last two years, she has participated in several TV shows for Telemundo, for En otra piel as head writer and as librettist for El señor de los Cielos first season, which has been awarded as Non-English Language US Primetime Program at the International Emmy Awards. Laura is currently working on the libretto for her first opera, La Reina, with composer Jorge Sosa.

ABOUT THE PROTOTYPE FESTIVAL
After just three years on the scene, PROTOTYPE: Opera/Theatre/Now has been deemed "suddenly indispensable" by The New Yorker. And The New York Times called the 2015 festival "bracingly innovative...a point of reference." PROTOTYPE has produced and presented 91 performances, shared the work of more than 275 local, national, and international artists, exposed visionary work to more that 9,000 people, and filled 19 stages across multiple boroughs of New York City. It has unleashed a powerful wave of opera-theatre and music-theatre from a new generation of classical and post-classical composers and librettists, and as Opera News proclaimed, "has become a major leader in opera theatre for the twenty-first century."

ABOUT AMERICAN LYRIC THEATER
American Lyric Theater (ALT) was founded in 2005 by Lawrence Edelson to build a new body of operatic repertoire for new audiences by nurturing composers and librettists, developing sustainable artistic collaborations, and contributing new works to the national canon. Many opera companies commission and perform new works; but ALT is the only company in the United States that offers extensive, full-time mentorship for emerging operatic writers. While the traditional company model focuses on producing a season, ALT's focus is on serving the needs of composers and librettists, developing new works, and collaborating with larger producing companies to help usher those works into the repertoire. Operas developed through the CLDP and by CLDP alumni have been presented by a wide variety of companies, including Chicago Lyric Opera, Washington National Opera, Tulsa Opera, Fargo-Moorhead Opera, Opera Saratoga, Urban Arias, Center City Opera, San Francisco Conservatory, New York City Opera VOX, and Beth Morrison Projects. In 2012, ALT was the first company dedicated to artist mentorship rather than operatic production to be recognized by OPERA America as a Professional Company Member - a testament to ALT's service to the field. For more information about American Lyric Theater, visit www.altnyc.org.

Photo Credit: Raúl Cano

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