Creators_Little program.indd

CREATORS IN CONCERT
DAVID T. LITTLE
The National Opera Center
Tuesday, March 10, 2015, 7:00 p.m.
Marnie Breckenridge, soprano
Cree Carrico, soprano
Mellissa Hughes, soprano*
Eileen Mack, clarinet*
Jazimina MacNeil, mezzo-soprano
The Chimera Trio:*
James Johnston, piano
Courtney Orlando, violin
Brian Snow, cello
*members of Newspeak
THE NATIONAL OPERA CENTER
AMERICA
OPERA AMERICA’S
PROGRAM
Vinkensport, or The Finch Opera (2010)
Librettist: Royce Vavrek
“Quasi Fetal Position”
Featuring Cree Carrico
JFK (2016, in progress)
Librettist: Royce Vavrek
“You Shiver”
Featuring Jazimina MacNeil
Soldier Songs (2006)
Librettist: David T. Little
“Still Life with Tank and iPod”
Featuring Christopher Burchett, baritone
Video courtesy of Beth Morrison Projects and PROTOTYPE
Dog Days (2012)
Librettist: Royce Vavrek
Based on the short story by Judy Budnitz
“Mirror, Mirror”
Featuring Cree Carrico
“My Legs Won’t Walk Me”
“What Are the Odds?”
Featuring Marnie Breckenridge
From the Newspeak Songbook (ongoing)
“Sweet Light Crude” (2007)
Lyrics: David T. Little
Featuring Mellissa Hughes MERRY CYR
David T. Little is “one of the most imaginative
young composers” on the scene (The New
Yorker) with “a knack for overturning musical
conventions” (The New York Times). His operas
Soldier Songs (PROTOTYPE Festival) and Dog Days
(Peak Performances/Beth Morrison Projects)
have been widely acclaimed, “prov(ing) beyond
any doubt that opera has both a relevant present
and a bright future” (The New York Times). Recent
and upcoming works include AGENCY (Kronos
Quartet), CHARM (Baltimore Symphony/Marin
Alsop), Hellhound (Maya Beiser), Haunt of Last
Nightfall (Third Coast Percussion), the opera JFK
with Royce Vavrek (Fort Worth Opera/ALT) and
the music-theater work Artaud in the Black Lodge
with Outrider legend Anne Waldman (Beth
Morrison Projects). His music has been heard at
Carnegie Hall, the Park Avenue Armory, the Bang
on a Can Marathon and elsewhere. Educated at
University of Michigan and Princeton, Little is
co-founder of the annual New Music Bake Sale
and the founding artistic director of the ensemble
Newspeak. He has served as executive director of
MATA and is currently director of composition at
Shenandoah Conservatory, as well as composer
in residence with Opera Philadelphia, Gotham
Chamber Opera and Music-Theatre Group. Little
also recently signed on to develop new work
through the Met/Lincoln Center Theater New
Works Program. His music can be heard on the
New Amsterdam and Innova labels, and he is
published by Boosey & Hawkes. davidtlittle.com
ABOUT THE WORKS
Vinkensport, or The Finch Opera was
commissioned by Dawn Upshaw for the Bard
Conservatory Vocal Arts Program. Scenes from
Vinkensport, or The Finch Opera were presented as
part of New York City Opera’s VOX Contemporary
American Opera Lab.
JFK was commissioned by Fort Worth Opera,
Darren K. Woods, general director; and American
Lyric Theater, Lawrence Edelson, producing
artistic director. Additional developmental
support has been provided by Opera Philadelphia
through its Composer in Residence program,
supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Soldier Songs was commissioned by the
Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Kevin Noe,
artistic director. Scenes from Soldier Songs were
presented as part of New York City Opera’s VOX
Contemporary American Opera Lab.
Dog Days was originally produced by Peak
Performances @ Montclair State (NJ) in
association with Beth Morrison Projects.
It was commissioned by Peak Performances @
Montclair State. Selections from Dog Days were
commissioned and presented by Carnegie Hall
for the Weill Music Institute. Scenes from Dog
Days were presented as part of New York City
Opera’s VOX Contemporary American Opera Lab.
ABOUT THE PERFORMERS
Soprano Marnie
Breckenridge’s diverse roles
range from highly acclaimed
performances of Lucia di
Lammermoor to Emily in
Rorem’s Our Town. Her
excellent acting credits and
musicianship have brought
her into the worlds of television, voice-over and
theater, where she recently composed the vocal
lines for and sang the lead in Wake at the
Connelly (New York City), directed by Mei Ann
Teo and composed by Jon Bernstein. Recent
modern opera roles include Mother in David T.
Little’s Dog Days with Montclair Peak
Performances (to be reprised this year at Fort
Worth Opera and Los Angeles Opera); Sierva
Maria in Peter Eötvös’ Love and Other Demons at
Glyndebourne Festival Opera; La Princesse in
Philip Glass’ Orphée and Margarita Xirgu in
Golijov’s Ainadamar with Opera Parallèle; her
Berkeley Symphony debut in Chin’s Cantantrix
Sopranica with Kent Nagano; and her Ravinia
Festival debut in Jake Heggie’s To Hell and Back
with Philharmonia Baroque, co-staring Patti
LuPone. Breckenridge is a featured soloist on the
2012 New World Records’ album of Victor Herbert
songs and recently made her European and Asian
debuts as Cunégonde in Candide with English
National Opera, Prague State Opera and on tour
in Japan, for which she was reviewed as being
“note perfect” (Prague Post) and “simply terrific”
(Opera Magazine, U.K.).
Praised by Opera News for her
“gleaming tone,” soprano
Cree Carrico is an emerging
singing actress quickly gaining
recognition as an interpreter of
20th- and 21st-century works. In
the summer of 2014, Cree
made her role debut in the title
role of Douglas Moore’s The Ballad of Baby Doe
with Chautauqua Opera, and she will make her
Fort Worth Opera debut as Rosemary Kennedy in
David T. Little and Royce Vavrek’s JFK in spring
2016. This upcoming season, she sings
Williamson Girl in David Lang’s the difficulty of
crossing a field, produced by Beth Morrison
Projects at Roulette. During BAM’s 2013 Next
Wave Festival, Cree appeared on both nights of
Beth Morrison’s 21c Liederabend, op. 3. While
completing her master’s degree at Manhattan
School of Music, Cree sang Marie Antoinette in
The Ghosts of Versailles, Jenny Smith in Aufstieg
und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny and Liza Elliot in
scenes from Kurt Weill’s rarely performed Lady in
the Dark. In spring 2013, Cree gave the New York
premiere of Heggie’s monodrama At the Statue of
Venus and performed in the ensemble of Carousel
with the New York Philharmonic, starring Nathan
Gunn and Kelli O’Hara. Since her senior year at
Oberlin College, Cree has been developing an
opera-theater hybrid called The Ophelia Project,
which explores a new side of Shakespeare’s tragic
heroine in a diverse program of songs, arias and
monologues. The Ophelia Project inaugurated
OPERA America’s Emerging Artist Recital Series at
the National Opera Center in October 2013.
Hailed by The New York Times
as “a versatile, charismatic
soprano endowed with
brilliant technique and
superlative stage instincts ...
indispensable to New York’s
new-music ecosystem,”
Mellissa Hughes enjoys a
busy international career in both contemporary
and early music. A dedicated interpreter of living
composers, Hughes has worked closely with
Steve Reich and Neil Rolnick, and has premiered
works by David T. Little, Ted Hearne, Caleb
Burhans, Christopher Cerrone, Jacob Cooper and
Frederic Rzewski, among others. In the classical
concert hall she has performed Mozart’s Vespers
and Requiem under the baton of Sir Neville
Marriner, Bach cantatas with Julian Wachner and
the Choir of Trinity Wall Street, Handel’s Dixit
Dominus with Sir David Willcocks, and the role of
Dido under the direction of Andrew Lawrence
King. Equally at home in front of a rock band,
Hughes has received widespread acclaim in her
role as lead vocalist of Newspeak, an amplified
alt-classical band, and for her work with Missy
Mazzoli’s Victoire. Recent and upcoming
highlights include Chicago Symphony’s Beyond
the Score performances celebrating Pierre Boulez;
Ted Hearne’s Wikipedia oratorio The Source at
BAM; a solo recital for American Songbook at
Lincoln Center; an acclaimed recording release of
Jacob Cooper’s Silver Threads from Nonesuch
Records; international tours with John Zorn; a
Bang on a Can All-Stars performance of David
Lang’s Death Speaks in Paris; and performances
with The Roots, Alarm Will Sound, Ensemble
Signal, the St. Lawrence String Quartet and more.
Based in Brooklyn, Mellissa Hughes holds degrees
from Westminster Choir College and Yale
University.
James Johnston is an
American musician who
enjoys an active and varied
career as a pianist, keyboardist,
composer and arranger. Called
“a sensitive performer” by The
New York Times, Johnston was
trained at The Juilliard School
and Yale University. He channels his skills and
creativity into many diverse concerts and
projects, including performing original cadenzas
as soloist with the Pittsburgh Symphony in
Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 17 in G Major, K.453,
performing harpsicord in Elliott Carter’s Double
Concerto, arranging Appalachian Spring for his
quintet Proteus, and writing and arranging
electronic music for his group EQuintet. Recent
performance projects include European and U.S.
West Coast premieres of Tyondai Braxton’s
Central Market with the London Sinfonietta and
LA Philharmonic, a centennial performance of
Pierrot Lunaire with the Proteus Ensemble as part
of the Five Boroughs Music Festival, performances
of John Adams’ Gnarley Buttons and Bach’s
Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 at the Vail Festival,
and several performances with Le Train Bleu and
Lar Lubovitch Dance Company. Johnston is also a
member of the Newspeak Ensemble, whose
recent performances include concerts at the Atlas
Performing Arts Center in Washington, D.C. and
residencies in Pennsylvania and Virginia.
Johnston has also composed and arranged a
variety of pieces for his ensembles. Recent
premieres include a performance of his flute solo
Pecking Order by flutist Liz Jensen at the Tenri
Gallery in New York and Tongue Tied for violin
duo at Spectrum in New York. Johnston received
his doctoral degree from the Manhattan School of
Music and currently lives in New York.
Clarinetist Eileen Mack grew
up in Australia and is now
based in New York. She is a
member of post-minimalist
band Victoire and amplified
ensemble Newspeak (which
she also co-directs), and she
has performed with many
other New York new music groups, including Wet
Ink, Alarm Will Sound, Ensemble Signal, the Bang
on a Can All-Stars and the Wordless Music
Orchestra. She has performed in venues around
the world, including Zankel Hall, the Sydney
Opera House, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw
and London’s Royal Albert Hall; has worked with
conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Oliver Knussen,
Brad Lubman and Alan Pierson; and has appeared
as a soloist at the Canberra International
Chamber Music Festival and the Bang on a Can
Marathon. Her discography ranges from work on
The Crocodile Hunter TV and movie soundtracks
to releases on New Amsterdam Records, Tzadik,
Innova and Warp Records. Mack holds degrees
from Stony Brook University, Manhattan School
of Music and the Queensland Conservatorium.
Hailed as “brilliant” by the
Berliner Morgenpost, Jazimina
MacNeil’s recent and
upcoming performances
include the roles of
Subdominant in Steven
Stucky’s new opera The
Classical Style with the Aspen
Music Festival, Mère Marie in Poulenc’s Dialogues
des Carmélites, Kate in Britten’s Owen Wingrave,
Third Lady in Die Zauberflöte, the title role in
Handel’s Rinaldo, Romeo in Bellini’s I Capuleti e i
Montecchi, Siébel in Faust, Carolina in Hans
Werner Henze’s Elegy for Young Lovers, Idamente
in Idomeneo and Carmen in Peter Brook’s
adaptation Le Tragédie de Carmen. Other recent
performances include a solo recital with the
Sideman Projekt in Berlin, a Verdi Requiem with
the Brattleboro Concert Choir, a Mozart Requiem
with the Albany Symphony, a solo recital at the
Curt-Sachs-Saal in the Berlin Philharmonic,
concerts at the Ravinia Festival with the Chicago
Symphony and the Steans Institute, concerts
with the Marlboro Music Festival, Chicago
Chamber Musicians and String Theory, and the
Winners Recital of the Liederkranz Competition
in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. MacNeil
received her bachelor’s degree from the
Manhattan School of Music.
Heralded by The New York
Times as a violinist of “tireless
energy and bright tone” and
by The Washington Post as
“dangerously gifted,” Courtney
Orlando specializes in the
performance of contemporary
and crossover music. She is a
founding member of the acclaimed new music
ensemble Alarm Will Sound, which has
premiered works by and collaborated with some
of the foremost composers of our time, including
John Adams, Michael Gordon, David Lang,
Meredith Monk, Steve Reich, Wolfgang Rihm and
Augusta Read Thomas. Performances with Alarm
Will Sound include those at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln
Center, Disney Hall, the Kimmel Center and
London’s Barbican Centre, as well as at venues in
Germany, Poland, Italy and Russia. She is also a
member of Ensemble Signal and the Deviant
Septet. Orlando is currently on the faculty of the
Peabody Conservatory. Prior to her appointment
at Peabody, she received her doctorate from
Eastman School of Music, where she also taught.
Cellist Brian Snow is a
member of Newspeak, the
OMNI Ensemble and the
Proteus Ensemble, and he
performs regularly with many
contemporary music
ensembles, including ACME,
Alarm Will Sound and Talea
Ensemble. He has performed and recorded with a
wide variety of artists, including John Legend,
Meredith Monk, the Emerson String Quartet and
The National, and has worked with composers
David T. Little, Nico Muhly and Martin Bresnick,
premiering dozens of new works. Snow holds
degrees from Stony Brook, Yale and Longy School
of Music, studying with Aldo Parisot, Colin Carr
and David Finckel. He teaches cello at Brooklyn
Conservatory and Western Connecticut State
University, and he is an affiliate artist and cello
teacher at Sarah Lawrence College.
JOIN US FOR THESE FUTURE EVENTS AT THE NATIONAL OPERA CENTER:
EMERGING ARTIST RECITAL SERIES | WASHINGTON NATIONAL OPERA,
DOMINGO-CAFRITZ YOUNG ARTIST PROGRAM
Saturday, April 11 at 4:00 p.m.
Founded in 2002 by Plácido Domingo, the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program is a leading residenttraining program for artists on the verge of international careers. Hear the future of opera in recital
when these emerging talents take the stage.
CONVERSATIONS | DAVID DANIELS
Tuesday, April 21 at 7:00 p.m.
David Daniels is known for his superlative artistry, magnetic stage presence and voice of singular
warmth and beauty. The American countertenor has appeared with the world’s major opera
companies, and he has left a footprint in history as the first countertenor to give a solo recital in the
main auditorium of Carnegie Hall.
EMERGING ARTIST RECITAL SERIES | 2014 MUSIC ACADEMY OF THE WEST MARILYN
HORNE SONG COMPETITION WINNERS: MICHELLE BRADLEY AND MICHAEL GAERTNER
Wednesday, May 20 at 7:00 p.m.
Fellows from the Music Academy’s voice and vocal piano programs compete before a distinguished
jury for prestigious awards given to those who excel in performing the song repertoire and display a
unique gift for communicating with the audience.
Register for future events at operaamerica.org/Onstage.
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