Matt Smallcomb

Fred Ebb Award-winning songwriters Michael Kooman and Christopher Dimond brought their concert, "The Crowd Goes Mild" to the Broadway at Birdland series on Monday, February 12.

I attended the world premiere of THE HUNGER, a new operatic work by Donnacha Dennehy in collaboration with the group Alarm Will Sound, and co-produced by Opera Theatre of St. Louis this weekend, and I was blown away by how affecting and compelling this 90 minute piece is. It's a multi-media exercise that attempts to convey a sense of the seven year famine that Ireland suffered through from 1845 - 1852. It was a time of starvation and widespread disease that saw many families emigrate to other countries, cutting the overall population by a nearly a quarter. This production at the Touhill (September 17, 2016) is both harrowing and invigorating in equal measure, and an absolute must-see for people interested in modern opera.