Ricky Ian Gordon News

Florida Grand Opera (FGO) is pleased to welcome the singers who will make up the company's 2017-18 Young Artist Program. Twelve performers in all, chosen from the nearly 550 who applied, will arrive in early October to become an integral part of the seventy-seventh season of Florida Grand Opera, the state's longest continuously running performing arts institution.

What a show! Opera Theatre of St. Louis has opened The Grapes of Wrath, a work by Ricky Ian Gordon and Michael Korie. I have never in my life been more emotionally moved by an opera than by this glorious production.

Michigan Opera Theatre is pleased to announce the 2017-2018 Michigan Opera Theatre Studio Artists. The roster includes tenor, Michael Day; soprano, Monica Dewey; baritone, Harry Greenleaf; bass-baritone, Erik Van Heyningen; and returning Studio Artist mezzo-soprano, Briana Elyse Hunter.

Houston Grand Opera (HGO) today announced plans for Seeking the Human Spirit (STHS), a six-year multidisciplinary initiative designed to highlight the universal spiritual themes raised in opera and to expand and deepen Houstonians' connections to opera and to art. Launching in the fall of 2017, STHS comprises three mainstage operas each season-one of which will be a new work-united by a single theme, and complementary projects by HGO and partner organizations created to enhance and enrich the community's experience of the themes. Some of these activities will be available to the public; others will offer personal access to opera and HGO artists and staff for groups such as hospital patients, women who are rebuilding their lives after homelessness, and young people pursuing interfaith projects. 

Acclaimed Off-Broadway theater company Playwrights Horizons will hold its annual Spring Gala on Monday evening, May 8, at the event space 583 Park Avenue. Titled A CELEBRATION OF SONG, the evening will honor three of the company's exceptional alumni writers: Tony Award nominee Scott Frankel (Grey Gardens and Far From Heaven at Playwrights), Tony Award nominee Michael Korie (Grey Gardens and Far From Heaven at Playwrights) and Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner Doug Wright (I Am My Own Wife and Grey Gardens at Playwrights). The Grey Gardens writing team has returned to Broadway with their new musical, War Paint, now playing at The Nederlander Theatre.

The Old Globe today announced its 2017-2018 Season, which will kick off with the world premiere musical Benny & Joon, with book by Kirsten Guenther, music by Nolan Gasser, and lyrics by Mindi Dickstein.

Pacific Opera presents A Mothers' Day Concert in SYDNEY! Featuring Maestro Simon Kenway (Artistic Director of Pacific Opera) and the 2017 Young Artists, this concert includes a complimentary afternoon tea before the concert in the beautiful surrounds of the historic Independent Theatre in North Sydney.

The New School's Mannes School of Music will celebrate its centennial with a concert at Carnegie Hall honoring the school's rich history on Tuesday, April 25 from 7 to 10 p.m.

Goodman Theatre joins Los Angeles' Center Theatre Group (CTG) in a new co-commissioning partnership that also involves three other internationally renowned theaters-London's Royal Court Theatre and National Theatre, and New York's Second Stage-in the hopes of generating new plays to appear in multiple cities over the next decade.

In the third of Alan Gilbert's final four subscription weeks as New York Philharmonic Music Director, he will lead an enhanced concert production of Wagner's Das Rheingold. Soloists include bass-baritone Eric Owens as Wotan, mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton as Fricka (in her New York Philharmonic debut), baritone Christopher Purves as Alberich (debut), tenor Russell Thomas as Loge, mezzo-soprano Kelley O'Connor as Erda, bass Morris Robinson as Fasolt (debut), bass Stephen Milling as Fafner (debut), soprano Rachel Willis-Sorensen as Freia (debut), tenor Brian Jagde as Froh (debut), bass-baritone Christian Van Horn as Donner (debut), tenor Peter Bronder as Mime (debut), soprano Jennifer Zetlan as Woglinde, mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano as Wellgunde, and mezzo-soprano Tamara Mumford as Flosshilde. The enhanced concert production will be directed by Louisa Muller with costume design - featuring character-based treatment of modern concert attire - by David C. Woolard. The performances will take place Thursday, June 1, 2017, at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, June 3 at 8:00 p.m.; and Tuesday, June 6 at 7:30 p.m.

Mannes School of Music's centennial culminates in Mannes' Centennial Celebration, a concert at Carnegie Hall honoring the school's rich history and the next 100 years ahead. This concert features live performances by past and present esteemed alumni, faculty, and students including Michel Camilo, Simone Dinnerstein, Frederica von Stade, Ricky Ian Gordon, the Orion Quartet and the Mannes Orchestra under the baton of music director David Hayes, and many more. 

Soprano Nadine Sierra - who at 28 years old is already establishing herself as a fixture at many of the world's leading opera houses, including those of Paris, Milan, Berlin, and New York - was named today by the Richard Tucker Music Foundation as the winner of the 2017 Richard Tucker Award.

MasterVoices (formerly The Collegiate Chorale), closes its 75th anniversary season with Victor Herbert's Babes in Toyland on April 27, 2017 at 7pm at Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall (57th Street and 7th Avenue, New York, NY 10019). The production will be conducted and directed by MasterVoices' Artistic Director Ted Sperling and will feature Kelli O'Hara (Contrary Mary), Bill Irwin (Master Toymaker), Christopher Fitzgerald (Alan), Lauren Worsham (Jane), Jay Armstrong Johnson (Tom Tom), Jonathan Freeman (Uncle Barnaby), Chris Sullivan (Gonzorgo), Jeffrey Schecter (Roderigo), Michael Kostroff (Chief Inspector Marmaduke), and Blair Brown (The Narrator), with the 130 singers of MasterVoices and Orchestra of St. Luke's. Musical Staging by Andrew Palermo, Costume Consulting by Tracy Christensen, and Concert Adaptation by Joe Keenan and Ted Sperling.

Hailed as “one of the great amateur choruses of our time (New York Today) for its “full-bodied sound and suppleness (The New York Times),” The Dessoff Choirs completes its 92nd season with an unforgettable concert dedicated to utopian visions.

ANGEL'S BONE, by Du Yun with a libretto by Royce Vavrek was awarded the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Music. The opera--a bold work that that integrates vocal and instrumental elements and a wide range of styles into a harrowing allegory for human trafficking in the modern world--debuted on January 6, 2016 at the Prototype Festival, 3LD Arts and Technology Center in New York.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents the Chiara String Quartet in an encore performance on Thursday, May 11, 2017 at 7pm in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium (1000 Fifth Ave) following their lauded 2015-2016 season MetLiveArts residency. The concert will include the New York premiere of Rome Prize-winner Pierre Jalbert's Canticle String Quartet No. 6 and Brahms' Clarinet Quintet with clarinetist Todd Palmer.

Mannes School of Music will celebrate its centennial with a concert at Carnegie Hall honoring the school's rich history and its vision for the future. The concert will feature live performances by esteemed alumni, past and present faculty, and students.

American Lyric Theater (ALT) and The Morgan Library & Museum present ALT Alumni: Composers & Librettists in Concert on Sunday, April 23, 2017 at 3pm at The Morgan Library & Museum in the Gilder Lehrman Hall, 225 Madison Avenue, NYC. 

The production will be conducted by MasterVoices' Artistic Director Ted Sperling and will feature previously announced stars Kelli O'Hara, Bill Irwin, Lauren Worsham, Christopher Fitzgerald - with Jonathan Freeman, Chris Sullivan, and Jeffrey Schecter just joining the lineup - alongside 130 singers of MasterVoices, with Orchestra of St. Luke's.