From NEWMUSICUSA: “InsightALT: Opera in Eden”
Thursday, May 17, 2018
at 7:30 PM
Merkin Concert Hall
129 West 67th Street
New York, NY 10036
$25
Tickets
ALT concludes its 10th Anniversary celebration of the Composer Librettist Development Program with InsightALT: Opera in Eden, a one-night-only concert featuring three new one-act operas written by this year’s new class of Resident Artists. This event provides the opportunity to see the “next step” in the development of the three operas featured as part of The Living Libretto event in March. The evening will be hosted by composer/librettist Mark Adamo and Producing Artistic Director Lawrence Edelson.
Great operas don’t just happen.
American Lyric Theater (ALT) was founded in 2005 to build a new body of operatic repertoire for new audiences by nurturing composers and librettists, developing sustainable artistic collaborations, and contributing new works to the national canon. Many opera companies commission and perform new works; but ALT is the only company in the United States that offers extensive, full-time mentorship for emerging operatic writers. While the traditional company model focuses on producing a season, ALT’s programs focus on serving the needs of artists, developing new works, and collaborating with producing companies to help usher those works into the repertoire.
In 2007, ALT launched its core initiative, the Composer Librettist Development Program (CLDP), led by Producing Artistic Director Lawrence Edelson and a faculty including some of the country’s foremost artists, including composer-librettist Mark Adamo, composers Robert Beaser and Paul Moravec, librettists Mark Campbell and Michael Korie, dramaturg Cori Ellison, soprano Catherine Malfitano, and stage director Rhoda Levine.
Through the CLDP, ALT has provided intensive, personalized mentorship to 38 gifted emerging artists, and 15 short chamber operas have been developed under the auspices of the program. In addition, ALT has commissioned and developed 8 full-length operas through the CLDP. To present fully staged productions of these works, ALT has partnered with Atlanta Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Tulsa Opera, Fargo-Moorhead Opera, Fort Worth Opera, Opera Saratoga, and others. Alumni artists are also at the forefront of creating new operas for companies around the country. CLDP alumni are currently writing new works for Opera Philadelphia, Houston Grand Opera and The Metropolitan Opera.
Recently premiered and upcoming productions of operas commissioned by ALT include The Poe Project, a double-bill of one-act operas, Buried Alive by Jeff Myers and Quincy Long, and Embedded by Patrick Soluri and Deborah Brevoort (Fargo-Moorhead Opera 2014, Fort Worth Opera 2016); JFK by David T. Little and CLDP alumnus Royce Vavrek (FWOpera 2016); and The Long Walk by Jeremy Howard Beck and Stephanie Fleischmann, based on the memoir by Brian Castner (Opera Saratoga 2015, Utah Opera 2017).
ALT’s public performance programs provide the opportunity for audiences in New York City to see operas-in-progress through two series: The Living Libretto and InsightALT. To celebrate CLDP alumni, who are creating new operas for companies around the country, we launched a new concert series, ALT Alumni: Composers and Librettists in Concert, in November 2015, which was recently lauded in Opera News for offering New Yorkers “the rare opportunity to hear excerpts of what audiences in Houston, St. Louis, Los Angeles and Saratoga Springs have already heard. And, it turns out, we’ve been missing out on fantastic opera written by living, young composers!”
In the 2015-16 season, ALT provided personalized mentorship to 8 gifted composers and librettists through the CLDP working on four new operas: La Reina by Jorge Sosa and Laura Sosa Pedroza, The Life and Death(s) of Alan Turing by Justine F. Chen and David Simpatico, The Halloween Tree by Theo Popov and Tony Asaro, and Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Fallen Giant by Evan Meier and E.M. Lewis.
The Long Walk – Final Scene from Act 1
Commissioned and developed by American Lyric Theater. Music by Jeremy Howard Beck, Libretto by Stephanie Fleischmann, based on the memoir by Brian Castner. Developmental Workshop produced by ALT in NYC (June 2014). Featuring Daniel Belcher, baritone; David Blalock, tenor; Javier Abreu, tenor; Justin Hopkins, bass baritone; Caroline Worra, soprano; Donita Volkwijn, soprano. SCENE: Brian runs in Buffalo, New York, to keep “the Crazy” at bay, but scenes and memories from his time in Iraq keep overwhelming him.
LA REINA – Act I Excerpt
Commissioned and developed by American Lyric Theater. Music by Jorge Sosa, Libretto by Laura Sosa Pedroza & Jorge Sosa. Developmental Workshop Produced by ALT in NYC (Jan. 2016). Public concert co-presented as part of InsightALT and the PROTOTYPE Festival by French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) and ALT. Featuring Audrey Babcock, mezzo-soprano; Laura Claycomb, soprano; ALT Chamber Ensemble; Conducted by David Alan Miller. SCENE: Languishing in an American prison cell, Regina prays to La Santa Muerte, the patron saint of drug dealers.
JFK – Opening Scene
Commissioned by Fort Worth Opera and American Lyric Theater. Music by David T. Little, Libretto by Royce Vavrek. Developmental Workshop Produced by ALT in NYC (Nov. 2014). Public preview event presented as part of InsightALT, in partnership with Fort Worth Opera and MasterVoices. Featuring Sean Pannikar, tenor; Talise Trevigne, soprano; MasterVoices; Conducted by Steven Osgood. SCENE: The chorus and two Fates, set the stage for the final twelve hours of the 35th president’s life and time spent in Fort Worth, Texas.
See the full article here .
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At New Music USA, we see ourselves first and foremost as advocates. Our mission is to support and promote new music created in the United States. We do that in many ways, fostering connections, deepening knowledge, encouraging appreciation, and providing financial support. In recognition of the possibility and power inherent in the virtual world, we’ve worked to build a strong internet platform to serve our constituency. And that constituency is broad and diverse, from composers and performers to presenters and producers, casual listeners to die-hard fans. We’re truly committed to serving the WHOLE new music community.
As we go about our work, we make a point of not defining too precisely what we mean by new music. To define is to limit. It’s a spectacular time for musical creativity in part because so much music is being made that isn’t bound by conventional limitations of style or genre or background. The music that we hear being created in such abundance all around us is definition enough. We simply want it to flourish.
We’re fortunate to have as our legacy the history of previous decades of good works done by the American Music Center and Meet The Composer, the two great organizations that merged to form us in 2011. Their legacies have also brought a small financial endowment that mostly helps support our grantmaking. But we’re not a foundation. We depend decisively each year on the generosity of so many institutions and individuals around the country who are dedicated as we are to the advancement of new music and are devoted to supporting our work.
New Music USA is part of an international community of advocates for the arts. We’re members of the Performing Arts Alliance, the International Association of Music Information Centres, and the International Society for Contemporary Music. Those partnerships help us represent the interests of our constituents at every level.
No matter how far ranging our networks, our focus is always solidly on what brings these many constituents and communities together in the first place: the music. When someone uses our platform to listen to something new, recommend a favorite to a friend, or to seek financial assistance or information to support the creation or performance of new work, the whole community is strengthened. Together we’re helping new music reach new ears every day.
Our Vision
We envision in the United States a thriving, interconnected new music community that is available to and impactful for a broad constituency of people.
Our Mission
New Music USA supports and promotes new music created in the United States. We use the power of virtual networks and people to foster connection, deepen knowledge, encourage appreciation, and provide financial support for a diverse constituency of practitioners and appreciators, both within the United States and beyond.
Our Values
We believe in the fundamental importance of creative artists and their work.
We espouse a broad, inclusive understanding of the term “new music.”
We uphold and embrace principles of inclusivity and equitable treatment in all of our activity and across our nation’s broadly diverse population in terms of gender, race, age, location, national origin, sexual orientation, religion, socio-economic status and artistic practice.
John Schaefer
For new music by living composers
newsounds.org from New York Public Radio
https://www.wnyc.org/
93.9FM
https://www.wqxr.org/
105.9FM
For great Jazz
88.3FM http://wbgo.org/
WPRB 103.3FM
Dan Buskirk Spinning Jazz Mondays 11:00AM-1:00PM
Will Constantine Jr, Blues Bop and Beyond Thursdays 11:00-2:00 featuring Latin Jazz
Jerry Gordon Serenade to a Cookoo Frdays 11:00AM-2:00PM with Jerry’s Room at 1:00Pm
Jeannie Becker Sunday Jazz 10:00AM-1:00Pm
Please visit The Jazz Loft Project based on the work of Sam Stephenson
Please visit The Jazz Loft Radio project from New York Public Radio
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