At a board meeting on June 4th, 2019 Gordon Ostrowski, Manhattan School of Music, was elected Chair; Joan Desens, Director of Institutional Advancement, Glimmerglass Festival was elected Vice Chair; Jim Schaeffer, Center for Contemporary Opera, Director Emeritus was elected Treasurer.
On October 11, Gold Dime will release My House via Fire Talk Records. Today the band shared the official video for 'Hindsight II' the first single to be lifted from the forthcoming release. The video which was directed by Joe Wakeman premiered at Brooklyn Vegan and can also be shared at YouTube. The video was shot at the legendary performance art space The Kitchen in New York City, where Ambro, Wakeman and bandmate Ian Douglas-Moore all sometimes work. About the video Gold Dime's Andrya Ambro says, 'Sometimes we better understand the past if we just talk to it. So this is just the rhetorical me talking to the past through Hindsight personified. Also I think I had The Velvet Underground's 'Hey Mr. Rain' rattling around in my head when this all went down. There is a 'Hindsight' first edition on Gold Dime's debut album Nerves. It's basically the haiku version of 'Hindsight II,' only on piano and much more austere.' 'Hindsight II' is also available today on all digital streaming services to add to your favorite end of summer playlists.
The little OPERA theatre of ny will present a FREE concert of scenes from American operas in collaboration with Bronx Opera and operamission on Saturday, June 22, 2019. The concert will showcase the diversity of music and stories written for the opera stage by both native born and immigrant composers and librettists. The concert will take place outdoors on Governors Island in Nolan Park, in front of building 25. The performance is at 5pm and is FREE to the public. (Rain date: Sunday, June 23 at 4pm.)
The little OPERA theatre of ny will present a FREE concert of scenes from American operas in collaboration with Bronx Opera and operamission. The concert will showcase the diversity of music and stories written for the opera stage by both native born and immigrant composers and librettists. The concert will take place outdoors on Governors Island in Nolan Park, in front of building 25. The performance is at 5pm and is FREE to the public. (Rain date: Sunday, June 23 at 4pm.)
Portland Opera is pleased to announce programming for the company's 56th season, which will open on October 25, 2019. The season will launch with one of the most powerful operas of all time, Puccini's Madama Butterfly, starring internationally acclaimed soprano Hiromi Omura in the title role. In February, the company will present An American Quartet: Four One-Act Operas in an intimate evening in the Hampton Opera Center's black box theatre. These one-acts feature Gian Carlo Menotti's The Telephone, Samuel Barber's A Hand of Bridge, Douglas Moore's Gallantry, and Lee Hoiby's Bon Appetit! The season will continue with a rare presentation of Vivaldi's opera Bajazet in March, which will be a special collaboration with the Portland Baroque Orchestra. In the spring, Portland Opera will present its annual Big Night concert and Leoncavallo's verismo masterpiece, Pagliacci. The 2019/20 season will close with the Portland Opera premiere of Jake Heggie's familial drama, Three Decembers.
Boston Court Pasadena continues its mission of fostering new musical talent with the 3rd Annual Emerging Artists Series, May 30 June 9, 2019. The series will feature up-and-coming pianists, as well as vocalists who have been through a rigorous mentoring curriculum with some of Los Angeles' most prominent musicians and coaches including Mark Robson, Gloria Cheng, Lisa Sylvester, Vicki Ray, Brent McMunn and Paul Floyd.
The Chocolate Factory Theater (www.chocolatefactorytheater.org) continues its Thirteenth Anniversary season with the premiere of More Problems with Form, a new performance by Lauren Bakst. Tickets are $20 and may be purchased in advance at (212) 352-3101 or www.chocolatefactorytheater.org.
The Philippines' first full-length opera, National Artists Guillermo Tolentino and Felipe Padilla De Leon's most beloved 1957 opera, 'Noli Me Tangere' (Huwag Mo Salangin/Touch Me Not) returns to the Cultural Center of the Philippines' (CCP) main theatre, Tanghalang Nicanor Abelardo, from March 8-10, 2019.
Juilliard's Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts, under the leadership of Artistic Director Brian Zeger, opens its opera season with Britten's The Turn of the Screw, featuring Juilliard singers and the Juilliard Orchestra, conducted by Steven Osgood and directed by John Giampietro, on Wednesday, November 14 and Friday, November 16, 2018, at 7:30pm, and Sunday, November 18, 2018, at 2pm in Juilliard's Peter Jay Sharp Theater.
Performance Space New York kicks off its second themed season of performances and events-the Posthuman Series-with the world premiere of Annie Dorsen's The Slow Room (September 27-29). Dorsen has taken the idea of technological theater further than most artists.
Performance Space New York kicks off its second themed season of performances and events-the Posthuman Series-with the world premiere of Annie Dorsen's The Slow Room (September 27-29). Dorsen has taken the idea of technological theater further than most artists.
On April 21, 2018, Opera Santa Barbara presented Douglas Moore's GALLANTRY and Leonard Bernstein's TROUBLE IN TAHITI at the Center Stage theater in downtown Santa Barbara. The Center Stage is a 130-seat black box auditorium on the third floor of the chic, user-friendly Paseo Nuevo.
A rare treat this weekend only, Opera Santa Barbara presents an evening of one-act comic operas in the intimacy of Center Stage Theater. Leonard Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti will be performed along with Douglas Moore's broadly comic work, Gallantry. Both showcase the talents of Opera Santa Barbara's Chrisman Studio Artists (Chelsea Melamed, Byron Mayes, Elle Valera, and Jonathan Walker-VanKuren) in featured roles. Opera Santa Barbara's Artistic Director, Kostis Protopapas, praises these singers for their 'charisma and charm combined with impeccable comedic timing.'
On Saturday, May 5, 2018 at 7pm, Utopia Opera closes its 7th season with the US premiere of The Martyr of Antioch, a dramatic oratorio with music by Arthur Sullivan and words adapted by the composer and W.S Gilbert, in concert with orchestra, organ, choir, and soloists at Rutgers Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, NYC. The leading soloists are Alexis Cregger, Adam Klein, Caroline Tye, & Duncan Hartman and Utopia founder William Remmers conducts. This performance marks the world premiere of the first-ever critical edition of the score, edited by Robin Gordon-Powell & Martin Wright. Tickets ranging from $20 - $100 are available online and at the door. Tickets are available online at: utopiasullivan.brownpapertickets.com
Artistic and Executive Director of Pacific Opera Project (POP) Josh Shaw was recently named 'One of Musical America's Top 30 Innovators in Classical Music.' Over the past six seasons, he has directed 23 productions at POP including THE RAKE'S PROGRESS, ARIADNE AUF NAXOS, and LA CALISTO. His reimagining of THE ABDUCTION FROM THE SERAGLIO as an episode of Star Trek has gained national attention and has been produced by seven companies.
On March 19, 2018, Virginia's Tony Award®-winning Signature Theatre honored legendary Broadway composer John Kander with the company's ninth Stephen Sondheim Award. The Stephen Sondheim Award was presented at a black-tie Gala Benefit at the Embassy of Italy and will benefit Signature Theatre's artistic, education, and community programs.
On March 2, 2018, Opera Santa Barbara presented Gioachino Rossini's THE BARBER OF SEVILLE. Based on a libretto by Cesare and staged in a more modern manner by director Josh Shaw, the California performance of the early nineteenth century work was thoroughly amusing from overture to final bow.
Creator and librettist Cerise Jacobs – hailed by Opera magazine as “intrepid and artistically ambitious” – is quickly establishing a body of original operatic work that blends two of her great passions, myth and technology, in compelling and relevant contemporary stories. Her latest venture, premiering at Boston's Cutler Majestic Theater on September 27-29 of this year, is the video game opera PermaDeath, co-written with her son Pirate Epstein, founder of the video game company SqueePlay and a former New England Halo champion. Composed by Dan Visconti, perhaps best known in the opera world as the composer of Opera Philadelphia's recent Andy Warhol-themed ANDY: A Popera, the opera is directed by New York-based opera director Sam Helfrich, who helmed the first performances in New York of Hungarian composer Péter Eötvös's Angels in America at New York City Opera last year. PermaDeath is produced by White Snake Projects, headed by Boston producer and Artistic Director of TEDxCambridge Georgia Lyman, with Jacobs as Executive Producer.
On March 19, 2018, Virginia's Tony Award-winning Signature Theatre will honor legendary Broadway composer John Kander with the company's ninth Stephen Sondheim Award.