Archive | September, 2008
20 Questions with…eighth blackbird
Described by the New Yorker as “friendly, unpretentious, idealistic, and highly skilled,” the new-music sextet eighth blackbird promises – and delivers – provocative and engaging performances to its ever-growing audiences. Combining bracing virtuosity with a fresh and alluring sense of irreverence and panache, the sextet debunks the myth that contemporary music is only for [...]
Continue reading...20 (Plus) Questions with…composer and pianist Jake Heggie
12. September 2008
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Jake Heggie’s opera Dead Man Walking, a collaboration with librettist Terrance McNally, is a milestone in contemporary opera. Since its premiere in 2000, the work has become one of the opera world’s most performed new works. In addition to his other operas, the San Francisco-based Heggie is a prolific songwriter whose works have been performed and recorded by some of the most beloved singers of our time, most notably Frederica von Stade, Susan Graham, Audra McDonald, Patti LuPone and Joyce DiDonato. As a pianist he has accompanied several of these same singers in recital. Though best known for his richly nuanced and emotionally resonant vocal works, he has also composed many chamber and orchestral works. He is currently at work with librettist Gene Scheer on a truly epic project: an opera based on Melville’s Moby Dick, commissioned by Dallas Opera for its inaugural season in the Winspear Opera House in April 2010. The great Canadian tenor Ben Heppner will star as the obsessed whale hunter Captain Ahab.
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22. September 2008
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