Marina Boudart Harris

Laura Krumm

Ao Li

 

Thomas Glenn

Robert Mollicone

by Jack Perla & librettist Rob Bailis…

We’re delighted to announce that The San Francisco Opera Center has joined forces with ODC Theatre and Music Without Walls to present the world premiere performances of Love/Hate in April 2012 at the newly renovated ODC Theatre in San Francisco. This is huge news for everyone involved with this project – to start with, our San Francisco cast will be provided by The San Francisco Opera Center, from its world-renowned Adler Fellowship Program!!

Love/Hate was commissioned by ODC Theater and American Opera Projects.  Following San Francisco, the production will travel to New York, Philadelphia (Center City Opera Theater), and Houston (The Houston Grand Opera, HGOco). We’re thrilled by this new partnership – in addition to the tremendous artistic benefit to the production, it also means greatly increased visibility for the opera. Rob and I are deeply honored by the early support of Sheri Greenawald, Director of the San Francisco Opera Center , and San Francisco Opera Associate General Director Matthew Shilvock. Our deepest thanks to them, and to all the organizations and individuals that have helped develop and present Love/Hate.

Thrilled and incredibly honored by some wonderful news I have to share with you!  I have been awarded a rare double distinction from The Barlow Endowment for Music Composition.   In addition to receiving a $6,000 commission award under their General commissioning program, I have been named the only composer in the Endowment’s history to receive an Honorable Mention for The Barlow Prize in the same year!  170 composers applied and I am very grateful and humbled to be given such special notice from the judges.

About The Barlow Endowment for Music Composition:

The Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University was created to support individuals who demonstrate technical skills and natural gifts for the composition of great music.  Each year, the Endowment hosts an international composition competition and awards the Barlow Prize. Applications from across the globe are accepted and reviewed by a panel of musicians. The winners are selected and commissioned to compose new works during the next year.  Arrangements are made for a piece to be composed for and performed by ensembles who specialize in that genre.  The 15- to 20-minute work is expected to meet the highest artistic requirements for the medium.  This year 170 composer applications were submitted from several countries worldwide.

I am quite touched by a recent request from wonderful New York pianist, Thomas Bagwell, to write a song for the 20th Anniversary of the Aids Quilt Songbook concert.  I’m really excited to participate in this amazing project. The concert will be held in New York in June, 2012.

About Thomas Bagwell:

Called by Marilyn Horne “a pioneer for his age,” Thomas Bagwell is well-known as a pianist in song recital and chamber music. His appearances as a collaborative pianist have taken him to such venues as New York’s Carnegie Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Musikverein, the Concertgebouw, and numerous halls across the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and Japan. Thomas Bagwell’s activities as a coach and teacher have led to invitations to give master classes for colleges and apprentice programs in opera companies. He was an assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera for nine seasons, and has served in the same capacity for many seasons at the Washington National Opera, the Santa Fe Opera and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.

About The AIDS Quilt Songbook:

“The AIDS Quilt Songbook was a musical response to the confusion and shame surrounding the outbreak of HIV and was one of the first art song publications to deal solely with the topic of HIV and AIDS.”

My two new recordings for Innova Records are moving ahead as planned!

Poet’s Cabaret is set to go into Fantasy Studios this November 2011, to record a collection of new works focusing on a mix of short vocal songs balanced with short instrumental numbers.  I’m approaching it as a collection of scenes and short stories told through music and lyrics. The performers are Amie Penwell, Jordan Carp, David Arend, Jason Slota and myself.

I wrote the music and lyrics for seven of the songs.  The other lyrics are by Canadian writer David Brock (who also wrote the libretto for Pretty Boy, my project for the Paul Dresher Group), William Taylor, a wonderful, emotionally powerful San Francisco writer, and…Walt Whitman. The songs touch on love, loss, success, aging, grace, grimace, information, overload, quiet and the need for quiet. It’s a very personal project, as all the songs came directly from key experiences – the birth of my daughter in ’07, the death of my mom last summer, and so on. Poet’s is also about my romance with the three minute song form – all the songs land under 4 minutes in length, mostly around 3. It has been a joy to work on these songs, and learn more about composing by taking away….cutting to the core of the material.  The fantastic Ben Yonas of Yonas Media will produce this effort.

We filmed a promotional video that is in the editing phase now to launch my first Kickstarter campaign to support the project.  More details to come!

The Bastard Wind, my CD of chamber and vocal music, is two thirds ready – we mixed with the famous Leslie Ann Jones at Skywalker Sound and mastered with Michael Romanowski early this summer.  Soon we will be wrapping up the recording sessions with soprano Melody Moore.

Melody Moore

Melody Moore, one of America’s exciting new talents, has recently had the honor of portraying Susan Rescorla in the World Premiere of Christopher Theofanidis’ Heart of a Soldier at San Francisco Opera, which opened on the eve of the ten year anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center.

Michael Romanowski is President of the NARAS Board of Governors, and is the Chairman of the chapter’s Producers & Engineers wing. In addition to his service in music community, Michael teaches at San Francisco State University, and is an active panelist at conferences such as TapeOp, AES, CES, VSAC and NAMM .

Leslie Ann Jones is a multiple Grammy Award-winning recording engineer working as Director of Music Recording and Scoring at Skywalker Sound, a Lucasfilm, Ltd. company. She is a past Chair of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Board of Trustees, the organization that awards Grammys.

Soprano Adrienne Danrich

The fabulous soprano Adrienne Danrich will feature two of my songs in her
sold-out recital at Cincinnati’s Taft Museum tonight.  I’m a huge fan of hers and
very thrilled to have ‘Fireflies of the Sea’ and ‘The Peace of Wild Things’
be part of her recital.

She has been named a Duncanson Artist-in-Residence
at the Taft joining the ranks of poet/essayist Nikki Giovanni, filmmaker
William Greaves, visual artist Brian Joiner, and violist Nokuthula Ngwenyama.
Adrienne has received two Emmy nominations for her amazing one woman
show, This Little Light of Mine, a ‘live documentary’ double tribute to
Marian Anderson and Leontyne Price. So honored!

Martin Kuuskmann

Next week I’m off to Northern Washington State, close to the Canadian border, to work with my friend Martin Kuuskmann and the Pacific Arts Association, at the Blaine Jazz Festival.  I’ll spend a week there teaching kids to improvise and write music, and playing concerts. Born in Estonia, Martin is one of the world’s leading improvising bassoon virtuosos, a faculty member of the Manhattan School of Music, and founding member of New York based Absolute Ensemble.

Melody Moore

I’d like invite you to a very special performance at ODC Theater on July 11th. My dear friend and long time collaborator Rob Bailis – librettist for Love/Hate and Executive Director of ODC Theater, is stepping down from that position to return to a more active performing schedule (he’s a formidable clarinetist). Rob is also turning 40!  So this concert is a celebration of major milestones. What’s more, we’ll be performing scenes from our opera Love/Hate with former San Francisco Opera Center Adler Fellows Melody Moore and Thomas Glenn.  I hope to see you at this special benefit event for the ODC Director’s Fund!

Thomas Glenn

Ring in (Rob’s) Middle Ages on Monday, July 11, 2011
…

6:30 pm  Enjoy a special wine reception with Smith-Madrone Vineyards and Winery



7:00 pm  Watch a scene go from idea, to lyric, to stage, to music, to a full blown opera, as well as experience a virtuosic musical outpouring from Rob and colleagues, and take a few trips through Rob’s songbook with some of San Francisco’s finest pop stars.  We will also share highlights of things to come in the 2011-2012 season.  Concert will include an intermission with wine & heavy hors d’oeuvres.

8:30pm  Join us for a post-performance champagne  toast & birthday cake.

More info at the ODC website

ODC Theater, 3153 17th Street, San Francisco, CA  94117

$100 / single, $175 / couple

 PURCHASE YOUR SEATS  or CALL 415-863-9834

(Wed-Sat from 12-6pm).
*$70 of individual tickets and $140 of couple tickets are tax-deductible

Soprano Adrienne Danrich

The wonderful soprano Adrienne Danrich is performing Lilacs, my setting of Whitman’s “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed”, at the Arts Club of Washington on May 25th, as part of a celebration of Whitman’s life and writing. Thank you Adrienne, for helping to get the music out!

Our next concert is in less than two weeks, at ODC Dance Commons, Studio B, Saturday, April 9th @ 8 pm. We opted for this earlier date in order to collaborate on a benefit for victims of the Japanese eathquake and tsunami. 100% of net profits from the show will go to the Earthquake Relief Fund of the Japan Society.

Joining me will be singer Amie Penwell, saxophonist Hitomi Oba, violinist Michelle Maruyama and steady collaborators David Arend (bass) and Ricky Carter (drums). We’ll be playing jazz, chamber music and new songs from our recording-in-progress, “The Poet’s Cabaret”.

Email invitation

Tickets are $15 at the door.

Info on advance ticket sales will follow.

ODC Dance Commons, Studio B
351 Shotwell Street (17th & 18th)
San Francisco, CA 94110
Tel (415) 863-6606

I’m back from 17 amazing days working with the Houston Grand Opera’s HGOco, on rehearsals and performances of Courtside.  A one act chamber opera, Courtside premiered on Saturday, February 5th, to an audience of about 3,000, at the Chinese Community Center in Houston. Performances continued through 2/12 – eight in all throughout Houston. It was an exhilarating experience working with such an amazing organization as HGO, and with such a brilliant, accomplished cast and creative team. I’m sincerely grateful to Anthony Freud, Sandra Bernhard, Patrick Summers, Leslie Swackhamer, Evan Wildstein and everyone else involved with the project for this tremendous opportunity.

More about Courtside, at the HGO website

In rehearsal at HGO

HGO recently announced the launch of East + West, a four-year project to commission a series of new chamber operas based on the intersection of Eastern and Western cultures. I feel honored to have been asked to compose Courtside, the first opera in this series. The story follows three generations of Chinese Americans balancing Chinese traditions at home with American expectations on the basketball court. Both of which need to be reconciled when Jason Ching, a hot-shot high school basketball player, fights back when taunted on the court.

“Opera That Bridges the Divide” – The Wall Street Journal
“The Yao Ming Opera?” – Culturemap, Houston
“Song of Houston: East + West: Courtside” – Artshound.com

Costume designer Macy Perrone's sketch

CAST

Rodell Rosel
, Jason Ching
Seong Shin Ra, 
Margaret Ching
Kelvin Chan
, Goong-Goong Ching
Wesley Landry, 
Trevor Johnson

CREATIVE TEAM
Leslie Swackhamer
, Director
Joseph Li
, Music Director
Elizabeth Freese, 
Set Designer
Macy Perrone
, Costume Designer
Jack Perla
, Composer
Eugenie Chan
, Librettist
Shenshen Zhang
Pipa

Librettist Eugenie Chan

Set designs by the awesome Liz Freese

B-ball court becomes.... dining room

Seong Shin Ra (Margaret Ching) & Rodell Rosel (Jason Ching)

Pipa genius Shenshen Zhang

Cast, final performance

And….two new recordings are in the works!  Produced and engineered by Grammy-winners Judith Sherman and Leslie Ann Jones, The Bastard Wind will be a new disc comprising a cross-section of my recent vocal music. Well-known & beloved American singers confirmed for the recording are mezzo soprano Jill Grove, tenor Thomas Glenn, sopranos Melody Moore and Marnie Breckenridge. The disc will be recorded at Skywalker Sound in Marin, CA.  Piano duties will be shared between me and Lydia Brown (Marlboro Chamber Music Festival & The Metropolitan Opera). Poet’s Cabaret will be recorded at the Atlantis Group Studio in Santa Monica, during the month of April. This is a new project focusing on a mix of short vocal songs balanced with short instrumental pieces. I’m approaching it as a collection of scenes and short stories told through music & lyrics. Stay tuned for more details!