Congratulations to Steve Aiken on 17 years at Shreveport Opera

 Steve has been a longtime friend. I first met him at the Greater Miami Opera in 1984, when he joined the inaugural year of the young artists program there. He had a great sense of humor, a rough and ready American baritone, and a wonderful generosity. He was very opinionated, and not afraid to tell you what he thought, which can be a problem for singers, who generally are supposed to be very docile, especially early in their careers. He had a good run, including a Philip Glass premiere in Europe, several New York City Opera tours, and lots of regional work, particularly as a Pappageno. 

On a trip to New York to hold auditions, I ran into Steve covered in white dust. Turns out he was doing under-the-table contracting work for big bucks in between singing jobs. I tucked this information away and when Opera Memphis was starting to get serious about creating a new rehearsal-office facility, I approached him about becoming the General Manager and General Director. As the facility was being built, he was instrumental in keeping the architects and contractors on task and on time, something I never would have been able to do. Steve's warmth was great with our donors, and he was a particular favorite with one, Barbara Marshall, who was exceedingly generous and also demanding.

Steve went on to Nashville Opera and has just finished up seventeen years at Shreveport Opera, which was rechristened "Steveport" by the entire opera field. Keeping a small opera company afloat is one of the hardest jobs in opera. You have hardly any staff and very little money. Steve did it in style, staying in the black, and even doing an occasional adventurous show like DEAD MAN WALKING. 

Steve produced SPEED DATING TONIGHT! several times. I always knew about his witty and silly lyric writing--he wrote several school shows that have played at Shreveport and other companies--and he eventually wrote lyrics to several numbers in SpDT!, including "My Priest," "I live in a singlewide," "Wildlife Rehabilitator," and "Kleptomaniac." For the 2025 version of SPEED DATING TONIGHT!, his last production, he wrote lyrics to "Blood Donors," and "My Darling Pet Snake." 

Here's "Blood Donors"--Steve is a multigallon donor himself and even put together several blood drives at Opera Memphis. 

Turns out Steve and his wife Janice are moving to Minnesota soon, so we will enjoy a continued friendship in the Twin Cities. 

You can find more of Steve's collaborations on SPEED DATING TONIGHT! towards the bottom of the show's you tube playlist.

CINDERELLA'S ROYAL FEAST at Savannah Voice Festival

1st dress

Cinderella's Royal Feast is a part of my work as composer-in-residence at Savannah Voice Festival, which also included ALICE RYLEY, ANNA HUNTER, BIRTHDAY CLOWN, and DARLING CHUM O'MINE. We started with a working group at Garrison Magnet School for the Arts in Savannah. The group of students noticed how different Rossini's rather realistic tale differs from the American Cinderella, with its fantasy/Disney spin. FEAST attempts, without violating copyright mind you, to put the fantasy back into the story, while keeping with Rossini's florid vocal style.

from the performance

 

ALICE RYLEY goes West

ALICE RYLEY, my ghost story opera for Savannah Voice Festival, is going to have its West Coast premiere at Source/Filter Music Collective in Los Angeles. Written as a stand alone one act, it was also paired with ANNA HUNTER as a double bill by SVF in 2023. 

 

Sketching a new work for Taos Opera Institute

 Although it's not til 2028, I've started sketching a new opera for Taos Opera Institute's 20th anniversary. We did one excerpt from it on the showcase last week at TOI. This is Camryn Belle Creech as a singing magpie. The opera's working title is OVERHEARD. Thanks to Mark Craig, and TOI's predecessor/founders, Mary Jane Johnson and Linda Poetschke.

Catalogue, a work in progress

 I am working on an online catalog. It's part catalog. Part autobiography. It's a work in progress that I can update very easily. 

It's to help folks learn about my less well known pieces. It's to serve as a primary source for research. It's to keep keep things straight for my family. 

This wiki is done with great program called Obsidian. It's not working perfectly, but it will someday.

Click here to try it out. 

Flowing Gently, Sail out motor back, and 6483 available at Musicnotes

Although I've been an opera and vocal composer since my early twenties, there are plenty of other pieces of music in various instrumental genres. I'm exploring what to do with them. Ignore them. Put them up on IMSLP for free. These three, a new experiment, are up on Musicnotes, a sheet music site, for a couple of bucks to see if anyone might be interested. Here are the other two.

Catalogue (a work in progress)

A work-in-progress graph in Obsidian of my creative catalogue

So I'm in the beginning stages of trying to figure out a way that 99% of my material can be found by performers, producers, audiences, and researchers. This will probably end up being a website/wiki. I am going to try to do it through a program called Obsidian, which calls itself a "private and flexible writing app." (I've been using a program called Infoselect for years. It is solid and dependable--it works like a mountain of post-it notes. Very flexible and searchable. But can't do things like graphs and websites.) 

Composers and songwriters end up with a variety of publishing relationships during the course of their careers. Increasingly self licensing is a practical and profitable option too. But all of these different ways of getting music to the public can make tracking things down difficult. I have seen this with the estates of composers--once the composer is gone, the writer's family sometimes has a hard time tracking down where things are. And publishers lose track of things too. 

The graph illustrates that my work is mostly self published, with a several publisher relationships, the most important being with E C Schirmer Classical. I've also decided that there are works that I'd like to make available through IMSLP. These are things that are in genres--brass fanfares, string quartets--that I'm not known for, so there's no reason not to make them available for free. Eventually, I'll upload more works to IMSLP. What is less robust at this point is the archiving. I'm throwing out boxes of old manuscripts after scanning them, but haven't quite worked out where these electronic files (along with a few boxes of paper) will end up.

Eventually each of the nodes on the graph will be clickable for more information--collaborators, commissioner, performance history, and how to get hold of it.

Hazel Miner, opera in one act

 

In April of 2025, Northern State University in Aberdeen South Dakota will premiere my new one act opera, HAZEL MINER. The opera is based on a well known upper midwest story about a teen who saved her two younger siblings in a fierce early spring snowstorm in 1920. The treatment is by Marla Fogderud, who also co-wrote the libretto. 

Near Center, North Dakota. 1920. Despite unsettling weather, Hazel and her brother and sister go off to school. An early spring blizzard hits and school is let out. Although Hazel's father has come to bring them home, they are separated as the children's horse bolts, dragging the sleigh behind it. Stuck in a ditch, the children are forced to spend the night in the freezing weather. The frantic search party finally arrives, but Hazel has sacrificed herself, covering young Myrdith and Emmet with her body for warmth. The family and community grieve.

The piano vocal score to HAZEL MINER is available in my perusal score folder. A large production would require at least 16 singers (9 women/5 men/4 children/plus ensemble), and a small one 10 (6 women/2 men/2 children/no ensemble). There are lots of opportunities for smaller roles. The opera is for two keyboards, or just piano. It's about 35 minutes long. Until the premiere is recorded, here are audio demos.

The opera would be an ideal opportunity to collaborate with a local children's choir or school music program. Y'know, put a lot of kids on stage!

The opera has a sing-along round finale, something I'm rather proud of. Give it a listen.