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Oberlin Winter Term Opera: Missy Mazzoli’s Proving Up (Feb. 4)

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by Nicholas Stevens

Opera, states composer Missy Mazzoli, has a “superpower of subtext.” The feeling of sitting in a room among strangers as unamplified voices subtly charge and change the air: this, more than any strict definition, constitutes the form’s precious essence, in her view. Few living composers exploit this superpower of multiple media and meanings the way Mazzoli does, leaving ample room for interpretation while honing an overall point so sharp that it cuts through regardless of staging. Oberlin Opera Theater’s recent Winter Term production of Proving Up, her bracing latest, found director Christopher Mirto and a cast of students more than equal to the challenge of realizing the opera’s subtext, picking up where music and words leave room for performers’ magic. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra:
fifteen minutes with
Mozart program soloist Kiera Duffy

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by Daniel Hathaway

Soprano Kiera Duffy will make her third Cleveland appearance and her Severance Hall debut this weekend when she sings Mozart’s Exsultate, jubilate with Harry Bicket and The Cleveland Orchestra.

In a telephone conversation from South Bend, Indiana, where she teaches at the University of Notre Dame, Duffy said, “Coming to Cleveland seems like a homecoming, because some of the most important gigs of my early professional career were there doing early music.”

Those gigs were with Apollo’s Fire, including performances and a recording of Handel’s Dixit Dominus over a decade ago, and more recently, the Praetorius Christmas Vespers. Since that time, Duffy has expanded her musical universe to include new music as well.

“Early music and new music make a strange pair of bedfellows, but they often go hand in hand in people’s careers. Obviously I’ve sung a really broad range of repertoire over mine. [Read more…]

Cleveland Opera Theater {NOW} Festival: a celebration of new opera

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by Daniel Hathaway

The creation of new operas is a passion of Scott Skiba, Cleveland Opera Theater’s executive artistic director. The company will host the third annual {NOW} Festival at Baldwin Wallace Conservatory beginning on Monday, February 4 and running through Sunday, February 9. All Festival activities are free and open to the public.

This year’s Festival will include partnerships between Baldwin Wallace, Bowling Green State University, the Cleveland Composers Guild, Hiram College, and Oberlin. “Every year we try to make the institutional collaborations and student engagement more rich,” Skiba said during a telephone conversation. “And this year we’ve got great energy around everything that’s happening.”

The Festival will also include an American Futures Residency by composers Jake Heggie and Griffin Candey, and soprano Ann Moss. “We started putting the plans for this together during the first {NOW} Festival,” Skiba noted. “The residency will allow us to bring these three exceptional artists to the BW campus to work and collaborate with Conservatory students.” [Read more…]

Oberlin Winter Term Opera:
Proving Up — a quest for the American Dream

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by Mike Telin

The Homestead Act of 1862 encouraged people seeking the dream of owning their own land to move west — the only cost was a filing fee of $18. Would-be homesteaders had to be at least 21 years of age or the head of a household in order to claim 160 acres of “free land.” (That included women and African-Americans after the 14th Amendment.) In exchange, homesteaders agreed to live on and farm the land, build a home, and make improvements for a period of five years, after which they would be eligible to “prove up.”

The sacrifices made in one family’s pursuit of the American Dream in the shadow of Civil War Nebraska is the subject for the most recent collaboration between composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek. On Thursday, January 31 at 7:30 pm in Wilder Main Lounge, Oberlin Winter Term Opera will present Proving Up, directed by Christopher Mirto. Performances continue through February 5 with free admission, but tickets are required. Cleveland Opera Theater will sponsor a talk-back and reception with the composer and librettist following the February 4 performance as part of the company’s {NOW} Fest ‘19.

“Rehearsals are going great,” Mirto said during a recent telephone conversation. “I think we’re in very good shape. I’m really excited because the opera is only a year old, and these are the first performances since it finished its commission cycle.” [Read more…]

Oberlin Artist Recital Series: Roomful of Teeth with the Oberlin College Choir (Feb. 16)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Roomful1Brad Wells’ groundbreaking vocal octet, Roomful of Teeth, spent a few days last week on the Oberlin College campus, giving demonstrations, holding master classes, and answering questions before joining Greg Ristow’s Oberlin College Choir in a jaw-dropping, larynx-challenging concert in Finney Chapel. [Read more…]

Music Critics Association of North America awards Breaking the Waves with inaugural Best New Opera award

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by Samantha Spaccasi

The Music Critics Association of North America presented composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek with its inaugural Best New Opera award for Breaking the Waves. Both will be honored on July 19 at the MCANA Annual Meeting in Santa Fe. [Read more…]

Preview: CMA VIVA! & Gala: Victoire on February 22— a conversation with composer-keyboardist Missy Mazzoli

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by Mike Telin

HailedVictoire as “one of the more consistently inventive, surprising composers now working in New York” by the New York Times, and “Brooklyn’s post-millennial Mozart” by Time Out New York, composer and keyboardist Missy Mazzoli added band leader to her impressive resumé in 2008 when she formed Victoire, an all-female ensemble of winds, strings, keyboards, and lo-fi electronics.

“It was my attempt to take control over where, when and how my music was performed. As a classical composer you’re usually at the whim of other performers and presenters. My goal was to take the best aspects of having a band, and the best aspects of being a composer and combine them, which is what I have done with the group,” Mazzoli told us by telephone. On Friday, February 22 beginning at 7:30pm in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art, VIVA! & Gala performing arts series presents Victoire in concert.  [Read more…]

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