Mark Campbell News

Lawrence Edelson, Founder and Producing Artistic Director of American Lyric Theater (ALT), announced today that three composers, three librettists, and one dramaturg have been selected as Resident Artists to participate in the tenth anniversary season of the company's nationally acclaimed Composer Librettist Development Program (CLDP). The artists selected for this prestigious residency and training program are composers Shuying Li, Andy Tierstein, and Liliya Ugay; librettists Lorene Cary, Julian Crouch, and Lila Palmer; and dramaturg Antigoni Gaitana.

Lawrence Edelson, Founder and Producing Artistic Director of American Lyric Theater (ALT), announced today that three composers, three librettists, and one dramaturg have been selected as Resident Artists to participate in the tenth anniversary season of the company's nationally acclaimed Composer Librettist Development Program (CLDP). The artists selected for this prestigious residency and training program are composers Shuying Li, Andy Tierstein, and Liliya Ugay; librettists Lorene Cary, Julian Crouch, and Lila Palmer; and dramaturg Antigoni Gaitana.

Lawrence Edelson, Founder and Producing Artistic Director of American Lyric Theater (ALT), announced today that three composers, three librettists, and one dramaturg have been selected as Resident Artists to participate in the tenth anniversary season of the company's nationally acclaimed Composer Librettist Development Program (CLDP). The artists selected for this prestigious residency and training program are composers Shuying Li, Andy Tierstein, and Liliya Ugay; librettists Lorene Cary, Julian Crouch, and Lila Palmer; and dramaturg Antigoni Gaitana.

There are opera festivals and then there are OPERA FESTIVALS, but none that promise to be the equivalent of Opera Philadelphia's O17, which opens on September 14 for a 12-day run. It's a dazzling array of the old and new, the well-known and emerging, being produced at prestigious venues around the city, from the Academy of Music to the Barnes Foundation. There's even a screening in Independence Park of a hit from the last opera season.

September 14 marks the launch of O17, the first edition of Opera Philadelphia's new annual season-opening festival. Featuring seven operatic happenings, six city venues, three world premieres, many already sold-out performances, and one superstar Festival Artist, this twelve- day immersion will transform the City of Brotherly Love into an urban stage for diverse audiences to gather and connect through the shared experience of opera (Sep 14-25). O17 shines a contemporary light on the genre, tackling daring subject matter, offering cutting-edge takes on the classics, and providing extraordinary artists with the chance to create their most imaginative and inspired work.

Due to popular demand, Ars Nova, in association with Ma-Yi Theater and Woodshed Collective, has released a new block of tickets and has added performances (September 16 & 30 at 3pm) to the world premiere of KPOP, a high-octane immersive event that gives you a backstage pass to a K-pop music factory.

HGOco, Houston Grand Opera's community collaboration and education arm, has launched the next phase of itsSong of Houston initiative with commissions from two rising composer/librettist teams. Home of My Ancestors, by composer Nkeiru Okoye and librettist Anita Gonzalez, will premiere in March 2019. The not-yet-titled second opera, by composer Nell Shaw Cohen and librettist Megan Cohen, will premiere in March of 2021. A third commission will be announced at a later time. The award-winning Song of Houston is an initiative within HGOco that has been creating new works based on stories that define the unique character of Houston since 2007.

The New York premieres and world premiere production of Gordon Getty's "Scare Pair," a double-bill by the San Francisco-based composer, pairs his two one act-operas -- Usher House and The Canterville Ghost -- together for the first time on October 19 and 21 (7:30pm) at The Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College (located at East 68th Street, between Lexington and Park Avenues).  Both works, with the libretto and music by Mr. Getty, will be sung in English and have a running time of 60 minutes each.

World premieres of works by Paul Moravec and Behzad Ranjbaran that speak to humanity's quest for freedom and peace highlight the Oratorio Society of New York's 2017-18 season, led by Music Director Kent Tritle.

This September, highlighting O17 - the first edition of its game-changing new annual season-opening festival - Opera Philadelphia presents the world premiere of Elizabeth Cree in collaboration with London's Hackney Empire (Sep 14-23).

OPERA America, the national service organization for opera and the nation's leading champion for American opera, is pleased to announce the latest recipients of Commissioning Grants from the Opera Grants for Female Composers program, made possible through the generosity of the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.

Washington National Opera (WNO) announces the roster of emerging artists engaged for the 16th season of its Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program, which begins in September.

On July 22, 2017, Santa Fe Opera presented the world premiere of Mason Bates and Mark Campbell's opera THE (R)EVOLUTION OF STEVE JOBS. The new piece was co-commissioned by Santa Fe, Seattle, and San Francisco Operas. Director Kevin Newbury used a great deal of new technology in telling Jobs' story. In eighteen short scenes, a prologue and an epilogue, he covered important events in Steve's life by touching on specific dates in the sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties and early twenty-first century. Since there is no intermission in this ninety-minute piece, the drama constantly builds to its eventual climax with the death of the hero, and the denouement leaves the audience to contemplate his values and the effect his life had on all of us.

AOP (American Opera Projects) and Composers & the Voice Artistic Director Steven Osgood have selected six composers and three librettists to receive fellowships for its upcoming ninth season of Composers & the Voice. The 2017-2019 season will train, and present new works from, composers Matthew Browne, Scott Ordway, Frances Pollock, Pamela Stein Lynde, Liliya Ugay, and Amber Vistein and librettists Laura Barati, Kim Davies, and Sokunthary Svay. The primary focus of Composers & the Voice is to give emerging composers and librettists experience working collaboratively with singers on writing for the voice and contemporary opera stage.

AOP (American Opera Projects) and Composers & the Voice Artistic Director Steven Osgood have selected six composers and three librettists to receive fellowships for its upcoming ninth season of Composers & the Voice. The 2017-2019 season will train, and present new works from, composers Matthew Browne, Scott Ordway, Frances Pollock, Pamela Stein Lynde, Liliya Ugay, and Amber Vistein and librettists Laura Barati, Kim Davies, and Sokunthary Svay. The primary focus of Composers & the Voice is to give emerging composers and librettists experience working collaboratively with singers on writing for the voice and contemporary opera stage.

With Grammy-nominated American composer Mason Bates dipping his toe into full-length operatic waters for the first time--and star librettist Mark Campbell doing it for the umpteenth--the Guggenheim Museum's “Works & Process” series gave an extended peak into the development of their new opera, THE (R)EVOLUTION OF STEVE JOBS, which premieres on July 22 at the Santa Fe Opera (SFO). Looking back at that evening in April, I recall how the extended musical excerpts gave the audience a good idea of the brilliance of Bates's score and the general excitement in store.

21C Media Group has announced highlights from its 2017-18 selection of opera, vocal and choral music, featuring concerts, special events, broadcasts and recordings. Scroll down for details!

???????As the summer ends and the fall 2017 concert season comes into view, Kent Tritle will be found playing an organ recital at Himmerod Abbey, a Cistercian monastery in Grosslittgen, Germany. From there, it is off and running - the 2017-18 season for "New York's foremost choral conductor" (The New Yorker) is highlighted by the world premieres of two works with the Oratorio Society of New York, Sanctuary Road, an oratorio about the Underground Railroad by Paul Moravec, libretto by Mark Campbell, commissioned by the OSNY, and Behzad Ranjbaran's We Are One; concerts with the Cathedral Choir of St. John the Divine including a program celebrating the immigrant history of New York in collaboration with early/world music group Rose of the Compass that includes the world premiere of a commissioned work by Robert Sirota, and a program of Kodaly, Stravinsky, and Part's Miserere; programs of repertoire ranging from Gregorian chant to Morton Lauridsen with Musica Sacra; and Bach's St. John Passion with ensembles and soloists from the Manhattan School of Music.

AOP (American Opera Projects) announces the six singers who will become its Resident Ensemble for the upcoming ninth season of its Composers & the Voice training program. Comprised of one each of the basic operatic/vocal categories, the singers for the 2017-18 season will be Coloratura Soprano Tookah Sapper, Lyric Soprano Jennifer Goode Cooper, Mezzo-Soprano Blythe Gaissert, Tenor Blake Friedman, Baritone Mario Diaz-Moresco and Bass Adrian Rosas.

The Minnesota Orchestra today announced that conductor Sarah Hicks will lead the Minnesota Orchestra's "Live at Orchestra Hall" concert series through the 2020-21 season, and that Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts will continue as director of the Orchestra's Composer Institute through the 2019-20 season.