Suzanne Farrin's MACABÉA to Receive Concert Premiere at Miller Theatre

Miller Theatre at Columbia University School of the Arts will open its 2026-27 Composer Portraits series with the concert premiere of Suzanne Farrin's new opera Macabéa on Thursday, October 29 at 7:30 p.m.

The 75-minute opera, inspired by Clarice Lispector's final novel The Hour of the Star, features music by Farrin and a libretto by Sergio Chejfec. The concert presentation will feature soprano Charlotte Mundy, baritone Christopher Dylan Herbert and Talea Ensemble, conducted by Eduardo Leandro.

The Miller Theatre performance will offer an early look at the work ahead of its fully staged premiere at Theatro São Pedro in São Paulo, Brazil, in 2028. A post-show discussion with Farrin and Miller Theatre Executive Director Melissa Smey will follow the performance.

Macabéa was commissioned by Talea Ensemble with funding from the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation. Its early conceptual phase received support from American Opera Projects, while its development received funding through OPERA America's Opera Grants for Women Composers: Discovery Grants program, supported by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.

Farrin's recent commissions include works for the New York Philharmonic, Library of Congress, Sō Percussion, JACK Quartet and International Contemporary Ensemble. A 2018 Rome Prize winner and 2020 Guggenheim Fellow in Composition, she serves as the Frayda B. Lindemann Chair of Music at Hunter College and The Graduate Center, CUNY, and is currently a visiting professor at Columbia University.