Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival to Present THE CLEVER MISTRESS and MY LAST DUCHESS, 4/23 & 30

On Monday, April 23, 2012 at 7:30pm and Monday, April 30, 2012 at 7:30pm, Robert Sirota's The Clever Mistress (New York premiere) and Theodore Wiprud's My Last Duchess (world premiere) will be presented in a double bill as part of the 15^th anniversary season of the Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival at Peter Norton Symphony Space (95^th St. and Broadway, NYC). These fully staged, one-act operas – a tragedy and a comedy inspired by two Renaissance stories – will be performed with a chamber ensemble conducted by Victoria Bond, artistic director of Cutting Edge Concerts, and will be directed by Tom Dulack.

The Clever Mistress is based on Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron, a literary work finished in 1353 and based on one hundred short stories. In The Decameron, Boccaccio tells of seven ladies and three gentlemen who flee Florence to escape the bubonic plague and settle in the outskirts of the city. The story of Robert Sirota's The Clever Mistress (with a libretto written by the composer) concerns a beautiful young noblewoman married to an aged merchant and the way she uses an unwitting priest to gain the affection of a pious young prince. The chamber opera has four characters, plus a chorus of "penitents" and is scored for ten instruments.

My Last Duchess is one of the great dramatic monologues, written by Robert Browning in 1842. It conjures up the splendor of the Italian Renaissance in the person of a sophisticated and monstrously proud Duke. In Ferrara, around 1550, the Duchess Lucrezia died young, and poisoning was suspected. Her actual portrait was the basis oF Browning's poem, and now of Theodore Wiprud's My Last Duchess with a libretto by Tom Dulack derived completely from poems by Browning.

The cast of The Clever Mistress is Maeve Hoglund, soprano; Brandon Snook, tenor; Mark Walters, baritone; Robert Sirota, baritone; Sarah Chasey, soprano (chorus); John Callison, baritone (chorus); and dancer/choreographer Heather Lipson Bell.

The cast of My Last Duchess is Jennifer Greene, soprano; Maeve Hoglund, soprano; Nils Neubert, tenor; Mark Walters, baritone; dancer/choreographer Heather Lipson Bell; and dancer Danielle Eichman.

About Robert Sirota: Robert Sirota's work has been performed throughout the United States and abroad, at venues including Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Hall in New York, The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Tanglewood Music Center, the Aspen Music Festival, the Yellow Barn Music Festival, Benaroya Hall in Seattle, and at The Juilliard School, the Shepherd School of Music, Peabody, Oberlin Conservatory, Yong Siew Toh Conservatory in Singapore, Royal Conservatory in Toronto, and the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow. His commissions include works for the Empire Brass, American Guild of Organists, the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony, the Fischer Duo, the Peabody Trio, the Webster Trio, and the Chiara String Quartet.

Robert Sirota's catalogue comprises three short operas, a full-length music theatre piece, as well as orchestral, symphonic band, chamber and recital works. His music has been praised in The New York Times, which reported it to be, "fashioned with the clean, angular melodies, tart harmonies, lively syncopations and punchy accents of American Neo-Classicism." In addition to the New York premiere of The Clever Mistress, highlights of the current season include the premiere of a new cantata, Holy Women, and the world premiere of a commissioned work for the Appleton Organ at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Robert Sirota has received numerous grants and honors including a Guggenheim Award. Before becoming Director of The Johns Hopkins University's prestigious Peabody Institute in 1995, Sirota served as Chairman of the Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions at New York University and Director of Boston University's School of Music. In 2005, he was appointed president of the Manhattan School of Music in New York, where he is also a member of the School's composition faculty.

About Theodore Wiprud: Born in Washington, D.C. and currently residing in New York, Theodore Wiprud is a composer who also plays important roles as concert presenter, educator, and music executive. His compositions are known for the impact they make on performers and audiences, reflecting his constant interaction with both adult and young musicians and listeners. He currently serves as Director of Education at the New York Philharmonic, where he hosts the famous Young People's Concerts and oversees extensive programs for schools, young musicians, adults, and online learning.

Wiprud's Violin Concerto (Katrina), reflecting on the impact of the 2005 hurricane on the musical community of the Delta region, was composed for Ittai Shapira, who premiered it with the Knoxville Symphony in October, and recorded it with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic in January. Among his works are many dealing with spiritual experience, such as Hosannas of the Second Heaven, for orchestra; his two string quartets; choral music on texts from diverse religious traditions; and even percussion scores likeAnima. Other pieces respond to American literature, including American Journal, based on Robert Hayden's poem, and A Georgia Song, an extended setting of Maya Angelou. His Saxophone Quartet has been described as "a work of substance, rewarding to perform, and warmly received by audiences."

Wiprud earned his bachelor's degree in biochemistry at Harvard and his master's in theory and composition at Boston University, where he worked with David Del Tredici. He was a Visiting Scholar at Cambridge University as a student of Robin Holloway, and a composition fellow at the Aspen Music School studying with Bernard Rands.

About Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival: Composer Victoria Bond launched Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival to bring together composers, performers and New York audiences in an intimate and inviting setting. Since its first season in 1998, it has blossomed into a multi-concert festival, attracting audiences from the tri-state area and performers from around the country. Since its inception, over 30 world premieres and dozens of New York premieres have been performed at Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival.

A significant feature of Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival is that all composers will be in attendance and speak briefly about their music on stage with CEC artistic director Victoria Bond. According to Bond, "having the composers at the concert presents a unique opportunity to share their inspiration and creative process as a prelude to the performance of their music."