C&V Composer Lustig wins Charles Ives Fellowship

Ray Lustig

On May 20, 2009, the Academy of Arts and Letters held a ceremony in their auditorium on West 156 Street honoring men and women in various fields of the arts. 2007-08 C&V composer Ray Lustig was presented with one of two Charles Ives Fellowships.

According to the ceremony program:

Ray Lustig is writing music charged with intensity and leavened by intelligence. His Sonata for Violin and Piano shows the breadth of his vision. In it, a propulsive first movement which is quite shattering is followed by a movement of stillness and simplicity. This superimposition of opposites also applies for his award-winning Unstuck for orchestra, which explores past and present and the expectations they imply with surprising results.

Harmony Ives, the widow of Charles Ives, bequeathed to the Academy the royalties of Charles Ives’ music, which has enabled the Academy to give the Ives awards in music since 1970. Poet, librettist, and Academy President J.D. McClatchy presented Lustig with the $15,000 Fellowship.

Vrebalov’s “…hold me” now on CD

Kronos Quartet: Floodplain

A composition by Aleksandra Vrebalov (part of AOP’s Composers & the Voice 2002-03 season) is featured on the Kronos Quartet CD Floodplain (Nonesuch Records) available this week. The 21 minute work “…hold me, neighbor, in this storm…” was commissioned in 2008 by Carnegie Hall. The CD has received a four star review from The Independent (UK), calling it “a one-world project handled with suitably welcoming passion and respect.”

Read full review and listen to music

NYCO podcast with Stephen Schwartz

Stephen Schwartz

Stephen Schwartz sat down for an interview with New York City Opera following his recent presentation of scenes from Seance on a Wet Afternoon at VOX 2009. In the podcast, Schwartz discussed the development of his first opera and its upcoming premiere at Opera Santa Barbara.

Click here for interview.

“Seance” to be held at VOX on May 1

Michael Zegarski

On May 1, composer Stephen Schwartz will be holding a free, late night seance for NYC audiences, or more specifically, a reading of his opera Seance on a Wet Afternoon backed by the City Opera orchestra and members of the New York City Opera chorus also partaking under the musical direction of George Manahan.

Like AOP’s concert reading held last November, the VOX: Showcasing American Opera presentation will star Lauren Flanigan and Michael Zegarski as the scheming couple who kidnap a girl in the hopes of becoming famous by “finding” her through a seance.

READ THE FULL PRESS RELEASE

Tickets to the VOX: Showcasing American Opera series are free. Reservations can be made by visiting vox-nyco.com.

Michael Zegarski can also be heard at VOX on May 2 in Jonathan Dawe and Heather Raffo’s Armide (2-3:10 PM).

Curator blog calls Opera Grows in Brooklyn a benefit to the city

Leona Carney, Kristen DiNinno, and Joseph Flaxman in Jack Perla's Love/Hate

The folks at The Curator blog recently stopped by Galapagos Art Space to check out Opera Grows in Brooklyn, the March 20 collaboration of new music presented by Opera on Tap, the Remarkable Theater Brigade and AOP. We were on hand to reprise our performance of scenes from Jack Perla’s Love/Hate that students from the Manhattan School of Music had presented at MSM earlier that week under the music direction of Silas Huff and stage direction of Caren France.

Linnea Leonard Kickasola called the evening “an exciting new level of work for these young companies. Brooklyn and the rest of the city will benefit from future collaborations like these.”

Read the full review here.