Current and Recent Works: Silent Steppe Cantata, for Kazakh folk orchestra
‘Otrar Sazy,’ children’s chorus Koktem, and tenor soloist (in progress) Breathtails for string quartet, shakuhachi, baritone, commissioned by Thomas Buckner (in progress), Los Murmullos, commissioned by Ana Cervantes, pianist 2006 Way of Light, commissioned by the International Trumpet Guild (trp, electronics, video) 2005 The Left Side of Time, commissioned by trombonist Monique Buzzarté (trombone with MAX / MSP) 2003 Transfiguration (soprano, harp, percussion), commissioned by the Saarbruecken Rundfunk for the Saarbruecken Musik im Jahrhundert 2003, Germany Show more
Previous Operas: Sucktion (soprano, percussion, laptop), commissioned/premiered by soNu at REDCAT in Los Angeles 2008 Wet (chamber opera), commissioned by a consortium of foundations and premiered at REDCAT in Los Angeles 2005 Pope Joan (dance opera), commissioned / premiered by the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble and Dance Alloy, Byham Theater, Pittsburgh 2000 Croak – the last frog (music theater), for Meet The Composer Residency, George Washington University 1997 The E. & O. Line (electronic blues opera), concert sponsored by District Curators 1993
Commissions: Traces of Mississippi for chorus, orchestra, and soloists, commissioned by American Composers Forum for the Continental Harmony Project 2000 Solar Music, Fromm Foundation Commission 1997 American Icons, commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra 1996 Devil in the Belfry, McKim Fund Commission, Library of Congress 1993 Telluris Theoria Sacra, NEA Consortium Commission: Atlanta Chamber Players, Theater Chamber Players of Kennedy Center, New Music Consort 1986
Residencies:
Multiple residencies at Yaddo, The MacDowell Colony, Virginia Center for the Arts, Djerassi Foundation, 1979-2006
The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center (team leader), 2005
Project Residency at STEIM (Amsterdam), 2003
Educational Posts:
California Institute of the Arts, Professor of Music, since 2001
Visiting Darius Milhaud Professor, Mills College, Spring 2005
University of Pittsburgh, Assistant Professor of Music, 1996 -2000
Awards:
ArtsLink Award for The Silent Steppe Cantata
Multi-Arts Production Fund grant for Sucktion
Fellowship in Music, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts
Cal Arts / Alpert Award in the Arts
As Americans, we are celebrated for ingenuity and brashness; criticized for naïveté and capitalist excess; admired yet disdained, emulated yet rejected. One might make similar remarks about opera in America---all too often defined, and confined, by gate-keepers of the most conservative ethos, distrustful of change, challenge, and unfamiliar potentials. Yet, thanks to a handful of brutally honest renegade composers (Ashley, Monk, Glass, and Cage, for starters), this old-world form has undergone a shape-shifting genre-bending transformation that would have been impossible to initiate in any other country. The landscape of American opera will truly evolve when the vibrancies living in our diverse and pluralistic musics are fully embraced. I believe that the future of American opera as a relevant art form hinges on risk and experimentation coupled with the blurring of boundaries between art music and other genres such as non-Western, jazz, improvisation, and pop.
A year ago, a hurricane nearly destroyed Crescent City. Now, a bigger one rumbles in the distance. Will the “Voodoo Queen” Marie Laveau and two lone cops (one of them no longer alive) be able to save the city from the storm—let alone the anarchic Revelers, the roving ghosts of murderers, and five ambivalent Loa summoned by Marie? Show more
In Crescent City’s washed-out ruins, the Cop and his dead partner, Ghost Cop, reminisce about life before Hurricane Belle. In the wake of a run-in with the savage, drunken Revelers who tear nightly through the near-lawless streets, the Cop makes his way to Police HQ.
Alone, the Ghost Cop has a vision of the future. Another hurricane is coming. Soon. The voices of Crescent City’s drowned overwhelm Ghost Cop, who chases after the Cop.
Elsewhere, fresh from her tomb, Marie Laveau, too, has learned of the coming storm. Determined to save her city, she summons the Loa for divine help: Papa Legba, Erzulie Fréda, Marassa Jumeaux (twins), and Baron Samedi. Yet in her desperation and growing exhaustion, Marie offends Baron Samedi. Offering to sacrifice herself for their help, she promises that they will find good people in Crescent City. She asks only that they don’t reveal their mission to Baron Carrefour who “in all light, seeks the dark.” The Loa disperse to determine whether the City is worth saving.
Cop and Ghost Cop find Laveau’s depleted body and take her to the makeshift hospital. Meanwhile, on the hospital’s helipad, two nurse’s aides, Annie May and Susie, do coke and hope for a helicopter to take them away or at least for boyfriends to distract them from their dismal lives.
After leaving Marie at the hospital, the Cop returns to the street, only to find his body being possessed by Baron Samedi, as Samedi begins to sabotage Marie’s hopes. The Baron forces the Cop from his beat to a sleazy club where the music’s so loud you can’t hear the ill winds troubling the air heavy with the scent of hard rain. Show less
