Adobe casita studio at The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos, NM.
I’m spending two months in Taos, NM as an Artist-in-Residence at The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico. I’m hard at work on the score of Turn and Burn, my upcoming chamber opera about rodeo for Houston Grand Opera’s HGOco.
As a three-time alumna of the Wurlitzer Foundation’s residency, I’ll also be giving an Artist Talk at The Harwood Museum of Art in conjunction with their special exhibit, The Legacy of Helene Wurlitzer: Works from the Harwood Collection. This event takes place on Friday, March 8, 2019 at 5:30pm. Details at harwoodmuseum.org.
“The Sphinx and the Milky Way” (1946) by Charles E. Burchfield.
The University of Wisconsin-La CrosseSymphony Orchestra presents the World Premiere of The Sphinx and the Milky Way, my tone poem for orchestra inspired by the visionary artworks of Charles E. Burchfield. (Pictured: Burchfield’s eponymous painting of a sphinx moth!)
This work was written in 2011 during my studies at New England Conservatory, where it was given a wonderful reading and recording session. Listen to NEC’s reading.
SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 2019 @ 2:00PM
University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Symphony Orchestra
La Crosse, WI Event Website
I’m pleased to share this video of Citywater’s World Premiere performance of Retrace (2018) for flute, violin, and cello, composed in response to the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail. This performance, which took place last September in Vallejo, CA, was part ofLandscape Music: Rivers & Trails, a nationwide series of collaborative concerts I directed for the Landscape Music Composers Network.
The full concert, with works by seven other Landscape Music composers, is available on LandscapeMusic.org’s YouTube channel.
Related Content
Retrace (2018) – Portfolio entry with accompanying poem and full performance history.
“Retracing the Anza Trail” – Essay on the background research and compositional approach that informed this work.
Next month in New Mexico: My chamber opera Mabel’s Call will be given a staged workshop production, featuring the full 85-minute score with six principals, chorus, and chamber ensemble!
Mabel Dodge Luhan
The accomplished faculty directors and student performers of the University of New Mexico Opera Theatre have spent the semester taking a deep dive into this opera and its historical inspiration: Mabel Dodge Luhan, the influential salon hostess, philanthropist, writer, and international icon of the avant-garde, and Taos, New Mexico in the 1910s and ’20s.
I’m incredibly honored by this collaboration and the invitation to work with the university as an artist in residence. After months of emails and video conferences, I arrive in Albuquerque next week to join rehearsals as the team prepares for their performances in UNM’s beautiful Keller Hall on November 2, 3, and 4.
Mabel’s Call has been developed over the past three years through workshops with American Opera Projects, Fort Worth Opera, and The Harwood Museum of Art, and two artist residencies at The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico.
My newest work, Retrace for flute, violin, and cello, commemorates the 50th Anniversary of the National Trails System Act. It was composed in response to the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail, which retraces the expansion of colonial Spain through California and Arizona.
Cemetery wall, Mission Santa Barbara.
To prepare for this project, I took a road trip this summer following the Anza Trail from Los Angeles to San Francisco, stopping at sites where the 1775-76 Anza Expedition made camp.
Retrace will receive four co-World Premieres during Fall 2018 in venues around the country, see dates and locations below!
Each of these concerts are part of Landscape Music: Rivers & Trails, a nationwide concert series I’m directing that features 11 World Premieres inspired by National Trails and Wild & Scenic Rivers, all written by members of my group: the Landscape Music Composers Network. I’m thrilled by what we have in store, and I hope you might be able to hear some of this wonderful music. (I’ll be at the concerts in Vallejo and Portland, come say hi!)
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2018 @ 4:00PM in Vallejo, CA
Citywater at Visions of the Wild Festival Event Website
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2018 @ 7:30PM in Houghton, MI
Michigan Technological University Event Website
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2018 @ 2:00PM in Portland, OR
Cascadia Composers Event Website
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2018 @ 7:30PM in Boston, MA
Juventas New Music Ensemble Event Website
“The most mysterious and probably most affecting of the three works was Mabel’s Call, an opera whose trio of excerpts were so subtle and arresting they exemplified a sort of waking-dream feeling [the] characters each seemed to be lost in…the composer most called to mind was Ives.” ,THE COLUMN
The cast of Mabel’s Call from the wings of Bass Performance Hall. Photo: Fort Worth Opera.
Excerpts from my chamber opera Mabel’s Call were beautifully performed last month on Fort Worth Opera’s Frontiers showcase. An aria and two scenes were given a piano-vocal reading in a showcase of new operas.
The performance received some lovely press: in addition to a glowing review in THE COLUMN, I was interviewed for a preview article inThe Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
It was a great honor to have my work featured on this platform, to share the stage with highly accomplished artists, and to receive feedback from a jury of opera professionals, as part of this project’s development!
In April, I was fortunate to co-direct a workshop of Fallen Star: a music-theater piece I’m writing with playwright Mashuq Mushtaq Deen (a collaborator from the Composer-Librettist Studio, who I am also working with on play The Betterment Society). This project started with a single song and blossomed into 40 minutes of words and music (that want to be 90 minutes!) during a few weeks of intensive writing with Deen.
The piece was given further shape through the contributions of an artistic team of otherworldly genius, music director Charity Wicks, singers Blake Friedman, Nicole Mitchell, and Camille Harris, and dramaturg Cori Ellison,who spent five days developing the project with us as part of a Creativity Fund workshop at New Dramatists.
Our work culminated in an informal presentation for an audience of friends and colleagues, who generously provided us with feedback in a Critical Response Process.
This was one of those moments when I’m particularly aware of the beauty of being an artist in New York City, and the beauty of New Dramatists, a remarkable institution supporting artist-led development.
I’m extremely honored that my chamber opera Mabel’s Call has been selected by Fort Worth Opera for their renowned 2018 Frontiers showcase! A 20-minute excerpt will be presented with piano accompaniment alongside other five other new operas-in-development during the Fort Worth Opera Festival at Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth, Texas. Check out their press release for more information about each of the works selected for this year’s festival.
Mabel’s Call will be featured on Thursday, May 3, 2018. Tickets are $10 and may be purchased online.
Hailed as “one of the most significant music events of the year” by D Magazine, Fort Worth Opera’s Frontiers showcase has yielded numerous regional and world premieres since its inception. This program offers audiences a first look at the developmental processes for operas and gives emerging composers and librettists a platform to showcase their talents.
I’m incredibly fortunate to have Mabel’s Call continue its development as part of this amazing program. Learn more about this opera at mabelscall.com.
Megan Cohen and I interviewed four-time World Champion barrel racer, Sherry Cervi, backstage at RODEOHOUSTON.
I had the great pleasure of spending last week doing immersive field research in Houston, Texas with my librettist collaborator (and sister) Megan Cohen. We’re in the early stages of developing a “feminist rodeo opera” commissioned by Houston Grand Opera’s HGOco for their wonderful Song of Houston chamber opera initiative.
Set at the present-day Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, this opera’s fictional story focuses on women in rodeo culture. Our characters include a professional barrel racer, a CEO of a Western wear company, a rodeo queen, and the ghost of a 19th century cowboy.
Thanks to Houston Grand Opera’s HGOco, and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, our research activities included interviews with seven amazing rodeo athletes (including World Champion barrel racers!); site visits to George Ranch, The Heritage Society, and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Women’s Leadership Conference; and, of course, plenty of exploring and observing the rodeo itself. Check out my Twitter and Instagram feed (#RodeoOpera) for photos and summaries of our experiences throughout the week!
The premiere production of our opera is scheduled for Spring 2021. I can’t wait to share it with you.
It inspired me to compose my first piece for solo piano (way, way past due!). It was my first opportunity to spend countless hours and miles walking by myself through an expansive landscape of astonishing beauty. (I took, literally, a thousand photographs.) I challenged myself to compose on the trail, and at the piano, away from my beloved (and sometimes constraining) Finale. This solitude was complemented by stimulating conversations at group meals, campfires, and sunset-watching sessions with fascinating fellow artists and new friends. I also got to learn more about horses, rodeo, and ranching from an expert and to watch horse wranglers at work (research for my upcoming “feminist rodeo opera” for HGOco).
These experiences will live on through my latest work, Walks at Brush Creek (2017) for solo piano. Here’s my program note for this piece:
Walks at Brush Creek was inspired by my daily walks through rural Western scenery as an Artist-in-Residence at Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts, located on a ranch in southeastern Wyoming abutting Medicine Bow National Forest. In the spirit of John Muir, I slowly “sauntered” for many miles on foot trails and dirt roads snaking through forests, valleys, and hills, and tried various approaches to combining this active mindfulness, a walking meditation, of sorts,with my creative process. The best days were when I generated melodies and motives on-the-move in the morning and fleshed them out at the piano in the afternoon. Walks at Brush Creek is the fruit of these experiments. With this score, I offer a musical illustration of my emotional responses to the landscape of Brush Creek Ranch, from the ever-shifting cloud shadows playing over the grasses and sagebrush to the sweeping lines of wooden fences that frame them.
I’m delighted to say that World Premiere of Walks at Brush Creek will be given at Michigan Technological University by faculty pianist Jon Ensminger on upcoming concert Music of the Landscape: Compositions Inspired by Our National Parks and Other Special Places. This event was coordinated by composer Libby Meyer in affiliation with my group, the Landscape Music Composers Network.
Sunday, December 10, 2017, 3:00pm
Michigan Technological University, McArdle Theatre
Walker 207, 1400 Townsend Drive, Houghton, MI 49931
Tickets: $5 Tickets and venue information
UPDATE: The full recording of the premiere performance Walks at Brush Creek is now online!
