Kevin Newbury News

From January 21-26, 2019, renowned soprano Renee Fleming will mentor 10 aspiring young singers and 10 collaborative pianists from around the world in the inaugural year of SongStudio, an innovative new program exploring the future of the vocal recital. Building on Marilyn Horne's remarkable work with The Song Continues, the intensive workshop will bring emerging vocalists and pianists together with leading artists and composers for a week of instruction and performance at Carnegie Hall.

The saying, 'Good things come to those who wait,' could certainly be applied to the world premiere of The Good Swimmer playing at BAM's Fishman Space as part of the Next Wave festival from November 28th-December 1st. Defined as a pop requiem for the youth of the Vietnam War, this collaboration between Heidi Rodewald (music) and Donna Di Novelli (lyrics) directed by Kevin Newbury has been the better part of a decade in the making since the two women began working on the piece at a Eugene O'Neill Theater Center residency and left with three songs based on text from out-of-print lifesaving manuals that would become the foundation of The Good Swimmer -- the title song, 'Red Cross' and 'Double Drowning'.

PROTOTYPE: Opera/Theatre/Now announces full programming for the seventh annual festival of fresh opera-theatre & music-theatre, running January 5-13, 2019 and featuring ten presentations that "shift the whole paradigm of what opera is and can be" (New York Observer).

Composer Heidi Rodewald, known for her collaborations with Stew on Passing Strange and The Total Bent, strikes out on her own in The Good Swimmer, a "pop requiem" that addresses issues of war, heroism, sacrifice, loss, and idealism. The moody, multi-layered song-cycle for guitar, bass, piano, trumpet, woodwinds, strings, drums, and vocals is performed by a nine-piece band led by singer David Driver. Set in the early days of the Vietnam War among a group of lifeguards, Donna Di Novelli's lyrics are a radical recontextualization of found texts, including a defunct lifesaving manual. A cast of young singers in their teens and early 20s at the start of their professional careers-Jeremy Weiss, Sophia Byrd, Naseer Sleets, Joey LaPlante, Luke Bob Robinson, Papa Holt, and Kennedy Kanagawa-vividly conveys the sense of young people being thrust into a historical moment they have no control of. Their shattering experience brings the audience to a galvanizing realization: we truly honor our fallen soldiers only when we defy the political drumbeat of a senseless war.  

Opera/Theatre/Now announces full programming for the seventh annual festival of fresh opera-theatre & music-theatre, running January 5-13, 2019 and featuring ten presentations that "shift the whole paradigm of what opera is and can be" (New York Observer).

Ravinia Festival has announced casting for its July 28 production of Leonard Bernstein'sMass. Conductor Marin Alsop has resurrected this overlooked work with performances around the world. This production reunites her with director Kevin Newbury (who recently won raves for directing the opera Fellow Travelers and the spectaculars as New York's Park Avenue Armory) after earning a Grammy nomination for their recording of Mass, which the New York Times praised as 'one of the best events of the year.'

In their astounding new opera The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, composer Mason Bates and librettist Mark Campbell explore the spiritual evolution of one of the most influential men of modern times as he creates a revolutionary new world of technological empowerment, then discovers a larger world within himself.

Take a walk on the wild side! Dressed to impress, Todd Almond steps back into the title role of Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati's season closer Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Written by John Cameron Mitchell with music and lyrics by Stephen Trask, this award-winning rock musical is an innovative, heartbreaking, and wickedly funny story of a gender-crossed glam rocker determined to become a superstar. The regional revival of ETC's 2001 and 2003 hit production is a rocking ride, entertaining, touching, and ultimately inspiring to anyone who has felt life gave them an inch when they deserved a mile. Playing June 5-July 1, 2018. Directed by D. Lynn Meyers. Presented by The Rosenthal Family Foundation and sponsored by LPK.

Take a walk on the wild side! Dressed to impress, Todd Almond steps back into the title role of Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati's season closer Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Written by John Cameron Mitchell with music and lyrics by Stephen Trask, this award-winning rock musical is an innovative, heartbreaking, and wickedly funny story of a gender-crossed glam rocker determined to become a superstar. The regional revival of ETC's 2001 and 2003 hit production is a rocking ride, entertaining, touching, and ultimately inspiring to anyone who has felt life gave them an inch when they deserved a mile. Playing June 5-July 1, 2018. Directed by D. Lynn Meyers. Presented by The Rosenthal Family Foundation and sponsored by LPK.

Take a walk on the wild side! Dressed to impress, Todd Almond steps back into the title role of Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati's season closer Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Written by John Cameron Mitchell with music and lyrics by Stephen Trask, this award-winning rock musical is an innovative, heartbreaking, and wickedly funny story of a gender-crossed glam rocker determined to become a superstar. The regional revival of ETC's 2001 and 2003 hit production is a rocking ride, entertaining, touching, and ultimately inspiring to anyone who has felt life gave them an inch when they deserved a mile. Playing June 5-July 1, 2018. Directed by D. Lynn Meyers. Presented by The Rosenthal Family Foundation and sponsored by LPK.

The combination of all of these voices and musicians sharing this powerful story set the concert on a good footing, initially. Unfortunately, the evening ended up being a disappointment.

Strathmore and Beth Morrison Projects will present the world premiere of Iron & Coal, a multi-media rock opera by composer/lyricist Jeremy Schonfeld and director Kevin Newbury, in the Music Center at Strathmore on Thursday and Friday, May 3 and 4, 2018 at 8 p.m.

The new opera Florida with music by Randall Eng and libretto by Donna Di Novelli, premiered last week at Atlas Performing Arts Center on H Street. With its heavy handed melodrama and awkwardly balanced narrative, Sunday's matinee plodded along (well over Urban Arias' usual 90-minute-or-less promise) before concluding rather lukewarmly. This said, the production was not without its merits.

Lyric Opera of Chicago's new production of Gounod's Faust is inspired by the works of multimedia artist John Frame (theatrical debut). Find out what happens when a deal with the devil goes awry. Lyric's new Faust is conducted by Emmanuel Villaume and directed by Kevin Newbury.

Lyric Opera of Chicago's new production of Gounod's Faust is inspired by the works of multimedia artist John Frame (theatrical debut). Find out what happens when a deal with the devil goes awry. Lyric's new Faust is conducted by Emmanuel Villaume and directed by Kevin Newbury. 

Works & Process, the performing arts series at the Guggenheim, presents LA Phil/Beth Morrison Projects: PLACE on Monday, March 5, 2018 at 7:30pm.

Works & Process, the performing arts series at the Guggenheim, presents LA Phil/Beth Morrison Projects: PLACE on Monday, March 5, 2018 at 7:30pm.

Lyric Opera of Chicago is excited to present the Chicago premiere of Fellow Travelers, the critically acclaimedopera based on the 2007 landmark novel of the same title by Thomas Mallon. With music by Gregory Spears and libretto by Greg Pierce, the opera reflects the tension between two men's professional and public lives, and their private, forbidden longings during the height of the McCarthy era in 1950s Washington, D.C. Daniela Candillari (Lyric debut) will conduct the 17-piece orchestra and Kevin Newbury will direct.

Houston Grand Opera presents Bernstein's West Side Story (April 20 - May 6), Bellini's Norma (April 27 - May 11), and return of Cruzar la Cara de la Luna (May 17, 19, 20) at HGO Resilience Theater World's first mariachi opera returns after New York triumph Houston, January 29, 2018 - Houston Grand Opera (HGO) will present the first major American opera house production of Leonard Bernstein ' s landmark musical West Side Story, April 20 - May 6, and Bellini's vocal powerhouse Norma, April 27 - May 11, in the HGO Resil i ence Theater at the George R. Brown Convention Center.

Houston Grand Opera's (HGO) Opera to Go! presents the world premiere of Monkey & Francine in the City of Tigers, with music by rising composer Kamala Sankaram and libretto by David Johnston, February 2 and 3, 9:30 and 11 a.m. both days, at Heinen Theater, 3517 Austin St., Houston. Performances are free. The 45-minute family opera is inspired by Indian and Chinese mythology and includes music influenced by Bollywood. A hilarious fable, Monkey & Francine in the City of Tigers demonstrates the power of teamwork as a monkey prince and his brainy sister outwit a hungry crocodile and escape from the City of Tigers. The opera is a co-commission of HGO's HGOco arm with American Lyric Theater, which presented a partially staged performance in New York City earlier in January. Seen and Heard International noted, the libretto was sophisticated and fresh, while the music was witty and eclectic. You tapped your toes and found yourself singing along.