(Photos Courtesy of Pam Chaddon, Chamber Orchestra of the Springs / Taken during rehearsal) Back in February, Eapen Leubner’s Art Song Colorado presented “Voices of the African Diaspora,” a concert dedicated to Black composers throughout the centuries. Audiences had the chance to listen to works by Joseph Bologne, H. Leslie Adams, George Walker, Jessie Montgomery, Andre Myers, and Undine Smith {…}
On June 16 and 18, 2022, audiences in New York City will get the opportunity to witness the world premiere of “Southern Crossings.” The work, set to a libretto by Yvette Christiansë and Rosalind Morris, centers on the story of the meeting between famed astronomer John Hershel and Charles Darwin and how different characters experienced and hoped that that meeting {…}
On June 18, 2022, the National Sawdust and Chelsea Factory will present Bare Opera’s production of Thomas Cabaniss’ “Firesongs.” Cabaniss, a South Carolina Native, was an initiator of The Lullaby Project and The Somewhere Project, both at Carnegie Hall, and was the host and composer-in-residence for Carnegie Hall’s Link Up program between 2010-2020. In addition to the dozens of works {…}
Perhaps no other figure in the history of the baroque period was so transformative, productive, and instrumental in the development of England’s musical heritage than Henry Purcell. He was a composer whose legacy is, somewhat remarkably, both famous and forgotten the world round. Having been born into a musical family—beginning his musical career as a boy chorister at the Chapel {…}
Despite his relatively subdued presence in contemporary performance repertoire, during his time Camille Saint-Saëns was known across the world for his exceptional aptitude and fiercely developed intellect. Having begun life as a piano prodigy and gaining compositional mastery shortly after with his “First Symphony” at the age of only 17, Saint-Saëns is possibly one of France’s most transformative, yet erroneously {…}
(Credit: Annelies van der Vegt) On June 9, the Grange Festival in Hampshire will open its fifth annual season. The festival will present three operatic masterpieces including “Macbeth,” “Tamerlano” and “The Yeoman of the Guard” as well as a Jazz and a Dance program. The festival, which was founded in 2016 by Michael Chance, Rachel Pearson, and Michael Moody, opened {…}
In 2019, Gail Gordon started Numi Opera with the aim of sharing works by composers and artists who were suppressed and banned by Nazi regime due to their Jewish origins. The opening productions that the company presented were Alexander von Zemlinky’s “Der Zwerg” and Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s “Der Ring des Polykrates.” It was supposed to be the start of a {…}
(Credit: Nina Close) Alexander Chance is a fast-rising singer who became the first countertenor to win the International Handel Singing Competition. He has performed at Wigmore Hall, Musikfest Bremen, Nargenfestival in Tallinn, and The Grange Festival, among others. This season as he continues his rise with performances in Ravenna, Japan, Munich, Tel Aviv, and Prague, among many others. OperaWire had a {…}
Credit: Karjaka Studios “As more people transition, the [opera] industry is going to realize that transgender singers are just like any other singers. I was transphobic in my own beliefs and thought; ‘The voice will be less. It won’t be operatic in quality.’ There are some risks, of course, but I have the same lyric baritone range as a lyric {…}