Opera Grows in Brooklyn Comes To Galapagos 9/18
By: Gabrielle Sierra Aug. 23, 2011
American Opera Projects and Opera on Tap, in association with the Brooklyn Book Festival, present Opera Grows in BOOKlyn! Music based on the works of contemporary Brooklyn writers
Sunday, September 18, 7:00pm
Discussion with Robert Levine, 6:00pm
Location:
Galapagos Art Space
16 Main St. at Water St., DUMBO, Brooklyn, NY
Directions: www.galapagosartspace.com Subway - F train to York Street; A/C train to High Street.
Tickets: Advance: $15; Door: $20 www.galapagosartspace.com
Info: www.operaprojects.org/operagrowsinbrooklyn and www.operaontap.com/newyork
ABOUT OPERA GROWS IN BROOKLYN AND
THE BROOKLYN BOOK FESTIVAL BOOKEND EVENT SERIES
Opera Grows in Brooklyn is an ongoing collaboration between American Opera Projects, "known for bringing cutting-edge vocal production to the masses," (New York ), Opera on Tap, "...raucous and sublime...un-elitist, imperfect, and fun..." (NY Sun ) and Galapagos Art Space, that presents 90 minutes of music from contemporary opera composers in a hip, cabaret-style atmosphere. Audiences have a chance to meet the creator and artists after the performance. www.operaprojects.org/operagrowsinbrooklyn.html
The Brooklyn Book Festival Bookend Events are a series of literary themed programs taking place in clubs, bookstores, performance institutions, restaurants, libraries and other venues. This year the festival organizers plan to build on the success of last year's inaugural Bookend launch by once again igniting a borough wide literary weekend full of robust and unique BBF events. The Bookends programming is curated to fit the festival's creative mission -- hip, smart and diverse literary programming. www.brooklynbookfestival.org
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Guest curator and composer:
Daniel Felsenfeld has been commissioned and performed by a wide array of organizations and ensembles such as ASCAP, San Jose Opera, American Opera Projects, the Da Capo Chamber Players, New York City Opera (VOX), ACME, Redshift, and Opera on Tap, New Gallery, Jody Redhage, the New England Conservatory Philharmonic in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Galapagos Art Space, Jordan Hall, the Kitchen, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Daniel is also the author of eight books and hundreds of articles. He teaches at City College and lives in Brooklyn.
www.danielfelsenfeld.com
Composers:
Mohammed Fairouz is one of the most frequently performed composers of his generation. Straddling Eastern and Western idioms and praised by The New York Times as "warmly sympathetic" and "brilliantly handled", his music has been received at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Boston's Symphony Hall, the Kennedy Center and throughout the U.S., Europe, the Middle East and Australia. www.mohammedfairouz.com
Martin Hennessy has written two operas with librettist Mark Campbell and is currently completing a the-atrical song cycle for vocal quartet based on the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay. His music has been pre-sented by New York City Opera's Vox series, American Opera Projects, New York Festival of Song, Guggen-heim Works & Process, Harvard Ballet Company and Mirror Visions Ensemble and has garnered awards from the San Francisco Song Festival, the American Music Center, ASCAP and Meet the Composer.
www.martinhennessy.net
David Lang is at the same time deeply versed in the classical tradition and committed to music that resists categorization, constantly creating new forms. In the words of The New Yorker, "With his winning of the Pu-litzer Prize for the little match girl passion(one of the most original and moving scores of recent years), Lang, once a postminimalist enfant terrible, has solidified his standing as an American master." www.davidlangmusic.com
David T. Little's music has been described as "dramatically wild...rustling, raunchy and eclectic," showing "real imagination" by New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini, and his work "completely gripped" New Yorker critic Alex Ross: "every bad-ass new-music ensemble in the city will want to play him." Little's highly theatrical, often political work draws upon his experience as a rock drummer, and fuses classical and popular idioms to dramatic effect.
www.davidtlittle.com
Raymond J. Lustig is the recipient of the American Academy of Arts Letters' prestigious Charles Ives Fel-lowship, ASCAP's Rudolf Nissim Prize, the Aaron Copland Award from Copland House, the Juilliard Orchestra competition, and the New Juilliard Ensemble competition, and his music has been presented by groups like Metropolis Ensemble, the Juilliard Symphony, the Bowling Green Philharmonia, American Opera Projects, the New Juilliard Ensemble, Blind Ear Music, Duo Noire, Avian Music, and counter)induction.
www.raymondlustig.com
Gilda Lyons, composer, vocalist, and visual artist, combines elements of renaissance, neo-baroque, spectral, folk, agitprop Music Theater, and extended vocalism to create works of uncompromising emotional honesty and melodic beauty. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel describes her Nahuatl Hymn to the All-Mother for tre-ble choir as "hair-raising, yet elegant [with] slides, dips, yips and yelps amid ceremonial intensity."
www.gildalyons.com
Matt Marks is a composer/performer of emotionally manipulative pop songs and acoustic works. His music, called "cheerily seductive" by The NY Times and "unabashedly boppy, baroquely multireferential, then sudden-ly sentimental" by Time Out NY, will hug your brain in a creepy-uncle sort of way. www.mattmarksmusic.com
One Ring Zero is led by Michael Hearst and Joshua Camp, who met in 1996 while working at the Hohner musical instrument factory in Richmond, VA (Joshua was an accordion technician, Michael was a harmonica technician). The band has since released nine albums, including As Smart As We Are (The Author Project), which features lyrics by famous writers, and The Recipe Project, which features recipes by famous chefs, set to music, and sung word for word.
www.oneringzero.com
Rachel Peters returns to Opera Grows in Brooklyn after having her opera Prairie Dogs performed there in March. Also with AOP: Jack's Vocabulary (MMNY) and this season's Composers & the Voice workshop; upcom-ing: Lincoln Center Songbook.
www.racheljpeters.com
Hailed as Top Composer in the World Under 40 by NPR, Paola Prestini is a composer, multimedia artist, and the director of VisionIntoArt Presents. Her music has been commissioned and performed by Carnegie Hall, the Kronos Quartet, and New York City Opera. Upcoming premieres include the Kennedy Center, and the Barbican with the BBC orchestra.
www.paolaprestini.com
Dennis Tobenski is a vocalist and composer, co-founder of the Tobenski-Algera Concert Series and founder of NewMusicShelf.com, an online digital distribution service for self-published composers. He is currently working on a commission by the Illinois State University Symphony Orchestra that memorializes a score of gay and lesbian teenagers who took their own lives in the Fall of 2010 across the United States.
www.dennistobenski.com
Stefan Weisman's music has been described by The New York Times as "personal, moody and skillfully wrought." His opera Darkling, commissioned by American Opera Projects, will be released by Albany Records in November 2011.
www.stefanweisman.com
Brooklyn Authors & Librettists:
Robert Levine is a classical music and opera critic, and sometime travel writer. He was co-editor of Tower Records' Classical Pulse! Magazine, and helped create Amazon.com's classical music store. He can be read in Stereophile magazine, Opera Quarterly, International Record Review, and Opera Now as well as on www.ClassicsToday.coM. Levine is the author of Maria Callas: A Musical Biography and the children's book The Story of the Orchestra, among other books. Hi s latest book, Weep, Shudder, Die: A Guide to Loving Opera, was released in June 2011.
Fiona Maazel is the author of the novel, Last Last Chance. She is the winner of the Bard Prize for 2009 and a National Book Foundation "5 Under 35" honoree for 2008. Her work has appeared in Bomb, The Common, Fence, The Mississippi Review, The New York Times Book Review, Tin House, Salon, N+1, and The Yale Re-view.
www.fionamaazel.com
Rick Moody's first novel, Garden State, was the winner of the 1991 Editor's Choice Award from the Pushcart Press and was published in 1992. The Ice Storm was published in May 1994 by Little, Brown and Company. Foreign editions have been published in twenty countries. (A film version, directed by Ang Lee, was released by Fox Searchlight in 1997, and won best screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival.)
Arthur Phillips' first novel, Prague, was named a New York Times Notable Book, and received The Los An-geles Times/Art Seidenbaum Award for best first novel. His second novel, The Egyptologist, was an interna-tional bestseller, and was on more than a dozen "Best of 2004" lists. Angelica, his third novel, made The Wash-ington Post best fiction of 2007 and led that paper to call him "One of the best writers in America." The Song Is You was a New York Times Notable Book, on the Post's best of 2009 list, and inspired Kirkus to write, "Phil-lips still looks like the best American novelist to have emerged in the present decade."
www.arthurphillips.info
Lou Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocal-ist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which spans sev-eral decades and crosses multiple genres.
www.loureed.com
Donna Di Novelli's work as a librettist and lyricist has been presented at the New York City Opera, Lyric Opera Cleveland, The Public Theater, the Guthrie Theater, and Joe's Pub. She is currently working with com-poser Christopher Theofandis on a commission from San Francisco Opera to premiere in September 2011.
Matt Gray is the author of several plays including the 12-part theatrical serial Penny Dreadful, produced at Williamsburg's Brick Theater from 2007-2009. He is completing his first libretto for the opera Semmelweis (music by Raymond J. Lustig), currently in development at American Opera Projects.
Janet Kaplan's two poetry collections are The Glazier's Country, winner of the 2003 Poets Out Loud Prize from Fordham University Press, and The Groundnote, winner of the 1997 Alice James Books New England / New York competition. New work from Dreamlife of a Philanthropist, a book-in-progress, has appeared or is forthcoming in American Letters & Commentary, Denver Quarterly, Hotel Amerika, Open City, and Sentence, among others.
www.alicejamesbooks.org
Isa Chandra Moskowitz is an American author, magazine columnist, and former host of community ac-cess cooking show Post Punk Kitchen. She has authored several best-selling cookbooks,including Vegan with a Vengeance, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, Veganomicon, Vegan Brunch,Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar and Appetite for Reduction.
www.theppk.com
Alex Rose's collection, The Musical Illusionist and Other Tales (Oct. 07) was described by Library Journal as "a potential cult classic" and an "utterly original work of fiction." His short story, "Ostracon," was recently in-cluded in the 2009 edition of The Best American Short Stories edited by Alice Sebold, and his essay, "Stranger in a Strange Land" is set to appear in New York Stories, an anthology of New York Times features.
www.predella.net
Susanna Speier's scripts have been performed at The World Financial Center, HERE Arts Center, The Coc-teau Theater, Cornelia Street Café, Bowery Poetry Club and Collective Unconscious, in New York City and at AIA in Burbank, CA. Her work has been performed at The Green Room in Manchester, England; Dartington College of Arts in Devon, England and Boom Chicago in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. www.susannaspeier.com
Mark Statman's writing has appeared in numerous publications including Tin House, Hanging Loose, Cin-cinnati Review, Trespass, The Hat, Bayou, conduit, subtopics, The Florida Review, Ping Pong, and American Poetry Daily as well as on The Bob Edwards Show, The Leonard Lopate Show, and PBS' New York Voices.
Royce Vavrek is a Canadian filmmaker, librettist, playwright and musical theatre writer known for the film From Sky and Soil, which was created as part of the Corus Young Filmmakers Initiative for broadcast on the W Network. His one-act opera with composer Jeff Myers, The Hunger Art, created while in residence at American Lyric Theater, premiered in concert at the Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theater Symphony Space in New York City, and was subsequently presented by Center City Opera Theater in Philadelphia on September, 2008.
ABOUT THE PRODUCERS
American Opera Projects (AOP), located in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, is an opera company devoted to the development of innovative opera and to supporting the work of living composers and librettists. AOP has presented over 15 world premiere operas including Lee Hoiby's This is the Rill Speaking (2008), Stefan Weisman's Darkling (2006), and Paula Kimper's Patience & Sarah (1998). Recent productions of AOP-developed projects include Séance on a Wet Afternoon at New York City Opera (2011) and the world premiere of Before Night Falls at Fort Worth Opera (2010). Upcoming in 2011: World Premiere of Tarik O'Regan's Heart of Darkness at The Royal Opera House's Linbury Studio.
www.operaprojects.org
Opera on Tap (OOT)'s mission is to bring opera to new audiences by performing in bars, rock concert halls, and other alternative spaces. Born in the backroom of a Brooklyn divebar in 2005, Opera on Tap has gained national press recognition, several performance residencies across the city, and regional Chapters in New Orleans, Chicago, Ann Arbor, MI, and most recently Atlanta. In addition to Opera Grows in Brooklyn, OOT hosts a new music concert series called New Brew at Barbes in Brooklyn the first Friday of everyother month and bi-annually co-produces the critically acclaimed 21c Liederaband in collaboration with Beth Morrison Projects and VisionIntoArt. 21c Liederabend was named best of 2009 in TimeOut NY in opera and classical by music editor Steve Smith.
www.operaontap.com
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