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VOX 2007 SELECTIONS
ELMER GANTRY
Music by Robert Aldridge, libretto by Herschel Garfein
Based on Sinclair Lewis' 1927 novel of American evangelism, Elmer Gantry follows the career of an unscrupulous charmer who masterminds the rise to prominence of a beautiful traveling preacher, with devastating results.
Robert Aldridge has written over sixty works for orchestra, opera, music-theater, dance, string quartet, solo and chamber ensembles. He is director of the John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University, where Elmer Gantry will have its premiere next season in a co-production with Nashville Opera.
THE RAT LAND
Music by Gordon Beeferman, libretto by Charlotte Jackson
A darkly funny and acid-tongued depiction of a dysfunctional family and the teenage daughter who hides in a fantasy world she calls the Rat Land.
Gordon Beeferman is a composer, pianist, and improviser whose work has been heard in concert halls and experimental music venues across America. He has received three BMI awards, an ASCAP Young Composer Award, and has been a Tanglewood fellow.
ELEGY FOR A PRINCE
Music by Sergio Cervetti, libretto by Elizabeth Esris
In this adaptation of Oscar Wilde's "The Happy Prince," a young vagabond discovers compassion for others upon a chance encounter with a prince.
Sergio Cervetti has composed over 150 works for orchestra, voice, chamber ensemble, dance and film that have been performed at Dance Theater Workshop, BAM's Next Wave Festivals, the Kennedy Center, The Sundance Institute, and other venues here and abroad. He taught composition at New York University for 25 years and currently resides in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
AIRLINE ICARUS
Music by Brian Current, libretto by Anton Piatigorsky
Depicting an everyday airplane in flight, equal turns comic and mythic.
Brian Current is a Toronto-based composer, a 2005 Guggenheim fellow, recipient of the 2003 Barlow Prize and winner of the grand prize in the CBC National Competition for Young Composers, Canada’s highest distinction for composers under 30.
RIO DE SANGRE
Music by Don Davis, libretto by Kate Gale, Spanish translation by Alicia Partnoy
An epic, lyrical tale of a dictator and his wife in a fictional Latin American country, sung in Spanish.
Don Davis is a California-based composer who has achieved recognition both as a composer of contemporary orchestral works and a dramatic composer for film and television. He has won three BMI awards, two ASCAP Foundation grants and two Emmy Awards and recently scored all the films in the Matrix trilogy.
NANNAN
Music and libretto by Wang Jie
Set in the Chinese Civil War and follows the turmoil of one of the wealthiest homes in Nanjin on the brink of a Communist victory.
Wang Jie is a New York based composer currently pursuing a master's degree at the
Manhattan School of Music under Richard Danielpour. Recently, her music has been featured at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Modern Music Festival; the Aspen Music Festival; as well as California State University as the recipient of this year's Northridge Composition Prize.
THE ENDINGS
Music and text by Jenny Olivia Johnson, performed with video
An abstract piece for ensemble and video that portrays the last hallucination of a dying scholar remembering her first adolescent love.
Jenny Olivia Johnson is currently pursuing a PhD at New York University in composition, theory, and musicology. She recently won an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award for Leaving Santa Monica, featured in VOX 2006, and completed a composition residency at Bang on a Can's Summer Music Festival.
IN THE FATHER’S GARDEN
Music by David Kirtley, libretto by Mark Kirtley
A one-act opera depicting a father and son working harmoniously together in a garden until mystical events disrupt their labors.
David Kirtley is a Colorado-based composer whose music synthesizes nature sounds and elements from indigenous musical traditions with the Western classical tradition.
CROSSING THE HORIZON
Music by Chris Lastovicka, libretto by E.M. Lauricella
An abstract narration of a UFO abduction for chamber ensemble.
Chris Lastovicka writes music dealing with psychological and metaphysical subjects and has had her works performed at Boston Early Music Festival, Merce Cunningham Studio, and Spoleto, Italy. She was a Presser Scholar at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.
THE FISHER KING
Music and libretto by Marc Lowenstein, based on the screenplay by Richard LaGravanese
A jazz-inflected adaptation of the film about a half-crazed beggar on a mission to find the Holy Grail.
Marc Lowenstein is a Los Angeles-based composer, conductor, and performer. He graduated from Harvard University and received a Ph. D. in Music Composition from University of California, Berkeley. He currently teaches at the California Institute for the Arts.
WITH SUCH FRIENDS…
Music by Tom Schnauber, libretto by Jeff Duncan
An “ungrand opera” based on a short story by Nikolai Gogol and depicts the absurd fall-out of an insult between two minor noblemen with major egos.
Tom Schnauber is a German-American composer who studied film scoring at the University of Southern California and holds a PhD in composition and theory from the University of Michigan. He has won composition awards from ASCAP, the Kennedy Center, the Columbia Orchestra, and the Chamber Orchestra Kremlin.
LA MACHINE DE L’ÊTRE
A monodrama in three scenes by John Zorn
A mysterious and evocative ten-minute opera for solo soprano and orchestra inspired by drawings by Antonin Artaud.
John Zorn is a leading figure in avant-garde music and New York’s downtown scene whose prolific output encompassing improvisation, jazz, rock, film soundtracks, and classical music has defied academic classification for over three decades.
*VOX: On the Edge features staged performances of opera excerpts presented by four of New York’s most prominent new music organizations.
Music-Theatre Group celebrates over 35 years of identifying and shepherding collaborative, interdisciplinary works of music-theatre that break down the barriers between opera and book musical. They present an excerpt from Golden Motors, composed by Derek Bermel with book and lyrics by Wendy S. Walters. With a Motown sound that mixes Rhythm and Blues with classical composition, the opera portrays the lives of a Detroit family driven to extremes during the industrial decline and economic hardship of the 1980s.
Encompass New Opera Theatre is dedicated to creating and producing adventurous productions of contemporary opera and new music theatre and has produced over 50 fully mounted operas with orchestra and staged readings of more than 135 new works. They will present excerpts from The Theory of Everything, an opera exploring superstring theory and spirituality that catapult a metaphysical search into other dimensions, commissioned from composer John David Earnest and librettist Nancy Rhodes.
The Center for Contemporary Opera is a 25-year-old organization devoted to producing new and contemporary works of opera and music theater in all forms. They present Practice in the Art of Elocution by Jack Beeson, which depicts a singer preparing for a song recital under the guidance of once-famous volumes in performance technique.
American Opera Projects is an opera company committed to working with creative artists to develop new operas and innovative opera projects. They are presenting the touring version of their critically acclaimed Darkling, a multi-media opera by composer Stefan Weisman and director/adapter Michael Comlish after the book-length poem by Anna Rabinowitz. Darkling interweaves a Holocaust drama with a landscape of projected films and images, collages of spoken text and pre-recorded soundscapes.
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