One of the larger productions in this year’s Protoype festival was the world premiere presentation of Thumbprint, an earnest and righteous account of the first Pakistani woman to prevail in a court of law against a group of tribal elders responsible for her “honor rape“. It’s the sort of subject matter that dares you to… Continue Reading
Review: Protoype Festival – Paul’s Case
The Prototype Festival, a multi-week festival dedicated to showcasing new works of opera for reduced forces in smaller, more flexible spaces has garnered a lot of press in recent months. Last year’s inaugural festival has made it into several top 10 lists of 2013 and producer/cheerleader/impresario Beth Morrison was recently profiled in the NYTimes (apparently her striking neo-goth rockabilly style confounded the photo editors, believing her to be too hot for the classical world).… Continue Reading
Review: Anna Nicole, The Opera
An Anna Nicole Smith opera. So obvious. High tragedy, low comedy, and all spectacle. The source material is golden. One would think it writes itself. One would be very wrong. The challenge (as with all adaptations, but even more so with non-fiction subjects) is two-part, first one must distill the mountain of actual events into… Continue Reading
Arguendo – Bringing the Supreme Court to Life
Just back from NYC where I saw 16 performances in 10 days, the entire Prototype Festival of new opera, co presented by HERE Art Center and Beth Morrison Projects, and large chunks of the Under the Radar festival at the Public Theater. That’s a lot of theater. And much of it was fantastic. When asked… Continue Reading
Einstein and Moby and LINES, Oh My!
It’s been a big week for massive sweeping ambitious works of art. I read Cloud Atlas in preparation for the release of the movie (book is great, movie less so), saw Jake Heggie’s Moby-Dick at the SF Opera, watched Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and capped the week off… Continue Reading
Why bother composing?
Jeffrey Parola sounds kinda bummed in his latest blog post. He outlines the all too familiar plight of the contemporary concert music composer (no appreciation, money, and little hope of either). He then earnestly asks: Why do we bother? In my mind the answer is simple. Creation of music that didn’t exist before HAS to… Continue Reading
June 24 – Sneak Peak of Failing That (my solo opera)
I’ve been doing a lot of composing so far this year. In addition to an encore for the Hilary Hahn competition (which didn’t result in an honorable mention, but did result in a pretty cool piece for violin and piano), I’ve been chugging away on the solo opera that’s been a good four years in… Continue Reading
The Tauntaun Song
Last month I participated in A Musical Emergency, which is a loose collective of theater and music folks in SF that turns popular stories or movies into full length musicals. They divide the story up into bite sized chunks and everyone’s responsible for telling their part of the story however they feel. The movie was… Continue Reading
I Hate This So You Can Tell Who I Am
Today’s blog entry in Deceptive Cadence echos a theme of my Voice Box radio show with Chloe Veltman and the corresponding conversation on Lisa Hirsch’s blog. Specifically, musical taste, both what you love and despise, is often more about self identification, ego, and image than it is about the music at hand. Some of the… Continue Reading