Family Opera Initiative To Host Pre-Premiere Event For Roven's GOODNIGHT MOON 8/6

Family Opera Initiative is excited to present the musical pre-premiere of Goodnight Moon, this year's Opera & Ice Cream performance. Goodnight Moon is a lullaby for singer and piano continuing composer Glen Roven's settings to music of celebrated children's author, Margaret Wise Brown. It will premiere next May at Carnegie Hall with the Buffalo Philharmonic. The pre-premiere musical event is executive produced by Family Opera Initiative founder Grethe Barrett Holby and produced by Ray Wetmore.

The concert which will also include Roven's PLUMS, Five Songs for Kids, based on 5 kid-friendly poems by poets William Carlos Williams, Christopher Logue, and Walt Whitman. Soprano Charlotte Cohn, who starred on Broadway in La Boheme and was featured in Coram Boy, will sing; the four-time Emmy Award winning composer Glen Roven will be at the piano. Cookies and lemonade, followed by the concert, and the Ice Cream finale, makes this an extra special family event for the entire community.

The Event will take place at the Rogers Mansion, Southampton Historical Society, 17 Meeting House Lane in Southampton, NY, on Thursday August 6th, from 4-6 pm. Admission by donation. Minimum suggested donation $20 adult, $12 children 3-10, $15 Students, Youth and Seniors.
Mr. Roven, who also composed Margaret Wise Brown's The Runaway Bunny, which was performed by the Royal Philharmonic, narrated by Brooke Shields, and released by SONY/BMG, will talk with the audience about what it means to be a composer and answer questions. This event will appeal to the very young, the medium young, and the young at heart, which includes the whole family, with or without kids.

Family Opera Initiative is the premiere company in the US creating new, high-quality musical-theater and opera works for family audiences. The company was founded by Grethe Barrett Holby, a Southampton resident, to create a substantial new repertory for family audiences, with the goal of bringing the opera experience to a widely diverse audience, and the commitment to engage the community in the process and performance of work - work that Enchants, Challenges and Inspires, with subject matter that matters. www.familyoperainitiative.org

Glen Roven, a four-time Emmy Award winner, is equally at home in the classical field as he is in the popular arena. Mr. Roven, made his Carnegie Hall debut last year conducting his Violin Concerto, based on the best selling children's book, THE RUNAWAY BUNNY, with Glenn Close narrating and the American Symphony Orchestra. Consequently, he recorded the piece with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Brooke Shields narrating which is available on Sony/BMY. Next season, also at Carnegie Hall, GOODNIGHT MOON will premiere with the Buffalo Philharmonic. Mr. Roven has conducted the National Symphony, the Seattle Symphony, the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, The Munich Philharmonic, The Radio Luxembourg Orchestra, as well as many others, and made his Israeli conducting debut in 2001 conducting the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in two sold-out concerts honoring Leonard Bernstein. He has conducted for Renee Fleming, Placido Domingo, Jessye Norman and Kathleen Battle and was chosen to conduct four Presidential Inaugural Concerts, as well as America's Millennium Celebration, produced by Steven Spielberg. In addition to appearing hundreds of times on television, he has written songs for, conducted and produced for Julie Andrews, Aretha Franklin, Kenny G., Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Quincy Jones, Kermit the Frog, Patti LaBelle, Liza Minnelli, Diana Ross, and many others. He conducted Frank Sinatra's last concert on television and Sammy Davis's final television appearance. His new musical THE 5,000 FINGERS of DR. T, written with Maria S. Schlatter and directed by Gary Halvorson opens on Broadway next season. He began his Broadway career as a rehearsal pianist for PIPPIN while still in high school, and at nineteen was the musical director of SUGAR BABIES. He is also a contributing author to GAMES WE PLAYED, a collection of essays published by Simon and Schuster, as well as the CITY SECRETS GUIDE to LONDON and NEW YORK. For children, he wrote and produced Sharon, Lois and Bram's Holiday album, CANDLES, SNOW and MISTLETOE and the theme song to THE BABYSITTER'S CLUB.

Charlotte Cohn, a graduate of the prestigious Actors Studio Graduate M.F.A. Program, made her Broadway debut in the Broadway production of Puccini's LA BOHEME, under the celebrated Australian director, Baz Luhrmann, to critical acclaim. She appeared in the show again in December 2003, when it kicked off an international tour in Los Angeles, where she performed the lead role of "Musetta." As part of the LA BOHEME cast, Charlotte appeared on the "2003 Tony Awards" and was featured in "Broadway Bares XIII." She has since performed on Broadway in CORAM BOY. Regional Theater: At Centerstage theatre, Baltimore she worked with Irene Lewis in 'The Murder of Isaac' which later had a reading at The Public Theatre in NYC, and performed the lead role 'Hallelujah Lil' in ACT's production of 'Happy End'. She worked alongside Elliott Gould in ONE HUNDRED GATES, at The Jewish Theatre of NY. Charlotte and her husband, Jason Odell Williams, are co-founders of their own Production Company, 'Bandwagon Prod.' They are currently working on their new play, "Baltimore in Black and White," and raising their four year old daugher, Imogen.

FAMILY OPERA INITIATIVE (FOI) Grethe Barrett Holby Executive Artistic Director; Ben Kopit Managing Director.

Founded by Holby in 1995 to create a substantial new repertory for family audiences, with the goal of bringing the opera experience to widely diverse audiences, and with the commitment to engage the community in the process and performance of work: work that Enchants, Challenges and Inspires, with subject matter that matters, Family Opera Initiative is the premiere company in the US creating new, high-quality musical works for family audiences. 

FOI is a major initiative of Ardea Arts, a non-profit organization that commissions, develops, and co-produces new opera and music theater. FOI works in partnership with the Atlantic Center for the Arts FL, and has partnered with American Opera Projects, the renowned children's theater TADA!, Fort Greene Park Conservatory, Orlando Youth Opera, Orlando Shakespeare Festival (Playfest), and Montclair State University (Peak Performances). FOI has commissioned four new operas for family audiences: Flurry Tale (Rusty Magee, Billy Aronson), Sir Gawain And The Green Knight (Richard Peaslee, Kenneth Cavander), and Fireworks! (Kitty Brazelton, Billy Aronson), and Animal Tales, by Hamptonite George Plimpton, composer Kitty Brazelton, and director Grethe Holby. Newly begun is an international collaboration based on a book by Umberto Eco and Eugenio Carmi, The Three Astronauts.

For further information, please visit www.familyoperainitiative.org and Ardea Arts.com.

 

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