BUOSO'S GHOST at Florida Grand Opera

Very excited to be going to Florida Grand Opera in January 2023 for GIANNI SCHICCHI and BUOSO'S GHOST. My first job was there back in the '80s. It was called Greater Miami Opera Association back then. I'll have more to say about it once I'm there. 

 

Dinner 4 3 in Singapore

Thanks to L'arietta Productions for doing DINNER 4 3 last month in Singapore. It was the first live production. DINNER 4 3 was first produced by Fargo Moorhead Opera as part of the Decameron Opera Coalition's first year project, TALES AT A SAFE DISTANCE. You can still see it online. D 4 3 was co-written with Deborah Brevoort.

Thanks to Reuben Lai at L'arietta for giving it a go! 

 

Another working photo from Bill Byrd

I don't have a lot of working photos. My friend (and longtime Amarillo Opera host) Bill Byrd is a talented photographer and I'm fortunate in being able to convince him to come to dress rehearsals to take photos. He took this at last fall's BARBER OF SEVILLE dress rehearsal and then toned down the keyboard I was using for recitatives which was all covered in brightly colored post-it notes. Thanks Bill! 

 

 

Chorus Rehearsal mp3s of Act II of LA BOHEME

 This post is strictly for folks in the business, so if you are looking to see what's up in my life, pass on by! 

For the upcoming 2023 production of LA BOHEME at Fargo Moorhead Opera, I have made rehearsal mp3s for the chorus. They are available for anyone to use at my soundcloud site. They don't include 100% of the chorus bits, but all of the major ones. Once you get to the soundcloud site, you'll want to hit the playlist tabs. There are usually six mp3s in each set--children, soprano, alto, tenor, bass, and tutti.

Of particular interest will be decisions I made at the beginning of the act and the end of it. The original has all sorts of sub groups of singers, with a large chorus creating the hustle and bustle of Paris at Christmastime. Most regional opera companies will do this same act with, maybe 30 choristers, and dividing the half dozen baritones and basses, for example, really will just thin them out too much. So the idea has always been to have folks sing as much as possible, call and response, antiphony be damned. 

One of the other challenges is the children's chorus. Traditionally, some of the female singers are assigned to double them. This has been worked into what's been done here so it can be learned in advance and with assurance. 

So if you are interested and in need, feel free to use these files at the soundcloud site AND download the pdf files for the opening and closing of the act.

Opening of Act II pdf 

Closing of Act II pdf

If you end up using these, I'd appreciate an email. 

DINNER 4 3, live

 

DINNER 4 3, my mini opera with librettist Deborah Brevoort, plays in Singapore on December third. It plays with Tony Solitro's SHE'S FABULOUS and Samuel Barber's HAND OF BRIDGE.

Commissioned by Fargo Moorhead opera as part of the Decameron Opera Coalition, DINNER 4 3 premiered online during the pandemic. This will be its first live production, which will be followed by a live version in Fargo later this year. 

Thanks L'arietta productions!

Amarillo

 Just had a great time doing BARBER OF SEVILLE in Amarillo. The cast (pictured: Ashley Dixon, Andrew Brown, Federico de Michelis, Carlos Santelli, and Tim Mix) was terrific--they sang out in rehearsal practically all the time and were such fun onstage. The production, by Fenlon Lamb, was just right for Amarillo--inventive, lighthearted, and very streamlined.  I am envisioning this as my sixth and last BARBER. My conducting is mostly a process of "stealing from the best" and after six productions I think I've learned lots of lessons from it. 
 

An additional bonus is that I got some nice action photos from my longtime host, Bill Byrd. 

BOW(EL) MUSIC

 I just dictated a text message about BOW MUSIC and it wrote down BOWEL MUSIC.

I can be a sh*ty composer, but I would never stoop so low.

Interview and a New Song

 

I recently recorded a zoom interview with mezzo soprano Audrey Johnson for her "Of thee I sing" series. I met Audrey when she sang Berta in a production of BARBER OF SEVILLE I was conducting at Shreveport Opera. The format of the interview concludes with singing a song. The song we selected is a new one, "Pondering Twilight." The song is published in Northstar Music's Modern Music for New Singers series. This lyric might be a little dark for a song meant to be sung by a young singer, but young people ponder their fate and future all the time. Thank you, Audrey!

When I see the coming twilight of my days

I hope I still can change my ways

And still learn something new

Let go of enmity

Forge new friendships

Thank those who helped me before they are gone

Apologize to those I have wronged

I hope that I will still bring something valuable to the table when asked

Not just stuff about the good 'ol days, or how it used to be

And when it's time for me to go,

I'll know it and slip gracefully away,

Ready to embrace what's in store

Even if its... nothing.

EIGHT WOODS AND A VAN

The main purpose of this post is to provide a link to further information about my 2018 opera, EIGHT WOODS AND A VAN. This 33 minute opera was commissioned and premiered by Cedar Rapids Opera and is about the life of the painter Grant Wood. You can download the information here. It's a direct download pdf. It hasn't been done since the 2018 premiere and is definitely good enough and easy enough to be done again! 

Per la gloria arrangement

Several years ago I did some arrangements of the old Italian songs. They were premiered by the artists in residence at Opera Memphis. One of them was Per la gloria d'adorarvi. A few years later, I borrowed the arrangement and put it into Speed Dating Tonight! #29-#30. The idea is that the daters are talking while the song is playing in the background. Because of balance, it's tricky and the singer singing the song can cover the daters. 

We are giving it another try right now at Taos Opera Institute, where we will be doing Speed Dating Tonight! for the second time in late June 2022. Here's a lovely phone recording of one of the participants Gabriel Chona Rueda, who is a student at University of British Columbia.  

 

 

Interview about ALICE AND ANNA

Interview about ALICE RYLEY AND ANNA HUNTER

Earlier this week I did an Instagram Live interview with Savannah Voice Festival Artistic Director Jorge Parodi about ALICE AND ANNA. You can view it here. Jorge was interested in the process of figuring out the story, writing the libretto, and composing the music. I was my usual opinionated self, talking about the need for repetition, melody, many more female characters, and a contemporary point of view--why will a modern audience member be interested in these stories, set in the 1730s and 1940s-50s. 

ALICE AND ANNA plays in Savannah (hey that rhymes!) August 12 and 13, 2022.  The first one act, ALICE RYLEY premiered in 2015 and ANNA HUNTER played for the first time a few years later. COVID-19 delayed their culmination as a full evening. 

 

 

https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=Voices%20of%20the%20festival 

National Opera Association board meeting in Houston

I'm proud to be on the board of the National Opera Association, which serves opera at colleges, universities, and small opera companies. We recently had a board meeting in Houston, which is the location for the January 2023 conference. Since the most active members are usually the directors of university opera programs, I'm able to provide a bit of a perspective from other parts of the opera ecosystem such as professional companies and composers. I particularly would encourage composers to think about writing operas that can be performed by small and medium sized college programs. (The largest universities and conservatories can often do what professional opera companies can do.) NOA has a vocal competition, a scenes program competition, a bi-annual new one act opera competition, and an important new composer fellowship supported by the estate of Dominick Argento. 

 

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, this time with orchestration

Thanks to Courtney Kalbacker, the intrepid and enthusiastic opera producer and teacher at Towson University, my version of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM had its first production in ten years. Originally premiered in 2011 with an all a cappella voicestra in the pit, it's been perceived--perhaps correctly--as very difficult to produce. Now, with a small orchestration of eight winds, much of the difficulty has gone away. These winds, along with a keyboard, keep the voicestra on pitch, but still allow the show to retain its a cappella character.

COVID provided much drama, but the double cast group of 57 managed to have only one drop out due to the pandemic. 

This is, IMO, my best work and I have Jay Mednikow and DeltaCappella to thank for it bringing it to life and making the cast recording, along with Opera Memphis and Playhouse on the Square for the 2011 production. I now have Courtney to thank for seeing the potential in MIDSUMMER as a perfect work for midsized university opera programs.

You can get the piano vocal perusal score here (an autodownload) and there will be video samples available soon.

 

Introducing Reg Huston (Thank you Susanne Mentzer)

 

Earlier this month, Susanne Mentzer did a concert of premieres at San Francisco Conservatory of Music. It featured new songs by fourteen different composers! All of the texts were written by Reg Huston during the pandemic, hence the title: STANDING STILL: STILL STANDING, Thoughts from a pandemic isolation. I feel very fortunate to have been introduced to Reg's work and promise there is more to come. There were so many new songs on the program that Susanne didn't premiere all of them. Here's one of mine from the concert, "Heaven's Gaze." It's performed by Matthew Worth and Kevin Korth. 

What can heaven show me

that I can’t see in your eyes;

when I look upon their beauty

they reflect the starry skies.

What can nature offer,

what magnificence, indeed;

your humanity is deeper

than all of her vast seas.

Can the mountain ranges

overpower the strength you own;

they bow in humbled silence

by the goodness that you’ve sown.

They cast empty shadows

but your light shines through, I find;

and your laughter echoes clearly

and your kindness clears my mind.

When I look to heaven

and I seek to find what’s true,

I am thankful that you love me

and that "heaven’s gaze" is you.

Reg Huston

December 30, 2020

 Earlier this month, I went to Joplin, MO to participate in RSBE #6 at Heartland Opera Theatre/Missouri Southern State University. It was a joyous experience to be back live. There was one issue and it wasn't COVID... It was snow! Joplin got hit with 4+ inches of snow and the temperature went down after. It stuck around for three days, causing the 1st dress and final dress to be cancelled as well as the opening night. We managed to open for two performances which played to quite nice houses.

Special thanks to the team, including Director Erick Wolf, Music Director Diana Allen, and pianist Kathy Nenadal.

Lingering ice in Joplin on Saturday after the 

Wednesday snow

RSBE is built to be expanded, like it's predecessor SPEED DATING TONIGHT! We premiered one new piece in Joplin, "What I had to do." 

I always ask casts to let me know if they have any ideas for new songs and one brave cast member, Faith Escobar, told me how she likes to hide in her room with old sitcoms and movies. She says they help portray a happier and less troubled world and help her get back out into the thick of it. It was an inspiring idea, and one I'd never have gotten on my own. "Hide with the TV" will be #19. Here's the demo.

While in Joplin, I went down to see George Washington Carver's boyhood home. It was an inspiring place, made special by the coat of snow. 

RSBE from Spring 2021 at Amarillo Opera

 

I'm about to go off to Heartland Opera which is collaborating with Missouri Southern State University on the 6th production of RSBE. Here's the video from last spring's 2021 production of RSBE at Amarillo Opera. The accompaniment is the two keyboard version which has piano and keyboard. 

The Amarillo production changes the premise from the original version at the University of Alabama. This optional premise incorporates COVID into the plot in a more plausible way. Either premise can be used when producing the show at this point. 

Art Songs and Arrangements

 

I'm not known as much for art songs and arrangements, but over the years, I've amassed over fifty of them. Probably the best known is an arrangement of the spiritual "Hold On,"  

An art song "I know the stars" is popular too. Anyway, I always hate things languishing on the shelf so what I've got  here is a chronological list of my art songs and arrangements, along with their first pages. There are links to recordings for some of them. If you're interested in doing something, please get in touch.