Julian Wachner News

Encompass New Opera Theatre will present the World Premiere of Anna Christie with music by Edward Thomas, set to a libretto by Joseph Masteroff, with 12 performances beginning today, October 4, 2018 at 8pm and running through Sunday, October 21, 2018, at the Baruch Performing Arts Center (at 55 Lexington Avenue, entrance on 25th Street, between Lexington and Third Avenues) in Manhattan.

The world premiere of the video game opera PermaDeath, written by creator and librettist Cerise Jacobs and composed by Dan Visconti, the composer of Opera Philadelphia's recent Andy Warhol-themed ANDY: A Popera, takes place at Boston's Emerson Cutler Majestic Theater from September 27-29. 

Encompass New Opera Theatre will present the World Premiere of Anna Christie with music by Edward Thomas, set to a libretto by Joseph Masteroff, with 12 performances beginning on Thursday, October 4, 2018 at 8pm and running through Sunday, October 21, 2018, at the Baruch Performing Arts Center (at 55 Lexington Avenue, entrance on 25th Street, between Lexington and Third Avenues) in Manhattan.

At a time when many feel called to advocacy, National Sawdust - the music incubator and venue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn - opens its fourth season highlighting their commitment to activism by featuring two artists who have gained notoriety inciting political or social change. Acclaimed Series NationalSawdust+ returns with the New York City debut of Mai Khoi - dubbed the Lady Gaga of Vietnam - for an evening of international music, poetry, and conversation on September 11. Then, on September 13, Madame Gandhi presents her acclaimed and empowering voice, music, and written work in the venue.

 Carnegie Hall's 2018-2019 season is fast approaching, and we are looking forward to exciting new projects and outstanding concerts! Highlights below include Carnegie Hall's Opening Night Gala with the San Francisco Symphony led by Michael Tilson Thomas as he embarks on his season-long Perspectives series; the launch of pianist Yuja Wang's Perspectives series; concerts curated and performed by Chris Thile, holder of the Richard and Barbara Debs Composer's Chair; the debut of Decoda, featuring alumni of Ensemble Connect; concerts celebrating the 50th anniversary of the New York String Orchestra and the 90th birthday of pianist Leon Fleisher; and, coming in spring 2019: a citywide festival-Migrations: The Making of America.

Encompass New Opera Theatre will present the world premiere of Anna Christie with music by Edward Thomas set to a libretto by Joseph Masteroff, beginning on Thursday, October 4, 2018 at 8pm, running through Sunday, October 21, 2018, at the Baruch Performing Arts Center (at 55 Lexington Avenue, entrance on 25th Street, between Lexington and Third Avenues). 

The world premiere of the video game opera PermaDeath, written by creator and librettist Cerise Jacobs and composed by Dan Visconti, the composer of Opera Philadelphia's recent Andy Warhol-themed ANDY: A Popera, takes place at Boston's Emerson Cutler Majestic Theater from September 27-29. 

Encompass New Opera Theatre will be presenting the world premiere of Anna Christie with music by Edward Thomas set to a libretto by Joseph Masteroff, beginning on Thursday, October 4, 2018 at 8pm, running through Sunday, October 21, 2018, at the Baruch Performing Arts Center (located at 55 Lexington Avenue, entrance on 25th Street, between Lexington and Third Avenues). 

Terry Riley, the father of minimalism and 'guru of American music' (The New York Times), will share the stage with LCD Soundsystem's analogue 'synth wizard' (NPR) Gavin Rayna Russom for a world premiere collaboration at National Sawdust - the music incubator and venue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The duo's performance on September 15, 2018 emphasizes National Sawdust's commitment to creating a fertile artistic environment for revered artists to foster the next generation's emerging talents while opening their diverse, wide-ranging fourth season. The Opening Weekend lineup also includes a celebration of Riley's work directed by composer-conductor and National Sawdust Artist-in-Residence Julian Wachner and featuring The Choir of Trinity Wall Street and NOVUS NY, and Devon Welsh kicking off the series of concerts curated by the Brooklyn-based AdHoc.

Each summer, the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association (OGCMA) presents its annual Sacred Masterwork concert and this year is no exception. Rich in spiritual trills and sacred thrills, Music of the Spirit, the 2018 free concert features GWYNETH WALKER's Songs of Faith - which was commissioned by OGCMA and hasn't been performed here since its 2013 debut - and JOHN RUTTER's splendid Gloria. Jason C. Tramm will conduct The Great Auditorium Choir and guest soloists Monica Ziglar, Katherine Pracht, Ronald Naldi and Justin Beck, accompanied by the MidAtlantic Brass Ensemble and organist Gordon Turk. The Great Auditorium is located at 54 Pilgrim Pathway in Ocean Grove, New Jersey, and is handicapped-accessible.

PROTOTYPE: Opera/Theatre/Now is pleased to announce programming for the seventh annual festival of fresh opera-theatre & music-theatre running January 5-13, 2019, featuring eight presentations that "shift the whole paradigm of what opera is and can be" (New York Observer).

From July 12-28, 2018, the “relentlessly inventive” (New York Magazine) new music collective Bang on a Can collaborates with MASS MoCA to present the 17th annual Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA. The festival is a musical utopia for innovative musicians and adventurous listeners in the beautiful Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts, dedicated entirely to the creation, study, and performance of contemporary music. Featuring public performances, recitals, and lectures, the festival features over 60 cutting-edge composers and performers from around the globe, including over 42 fellows selected from a pool of more than 250 applicants from throughout the world. This year's featured guest composer is Steve Reich. MASS MoCA, 'a mind-blowing delight,' (New York Post) is one of the largest museums of contemporary art in the country, with exhibitions spaces dedicated to James Turrell, Laurie Anderson, Sol LeWitt, Anselm Kiefer and Jenny Holzer, as well as massive gallery spaces with exhibitions by Taryn Simon, Liz Glynn, Allison Janae Hamilton, and Rachel Howard among many others.

Opera Saratoga's Artistic and General Director Lawrence Edelson announced that the company's 2018 Summer Festival will feature new productions of four operas at The Spa Little Theatre in Spa State Park, along with a wide variety of free and ticketed concert events from May 26 through July 15 at venues throughout the region.

Cerise Jacobs (photo credit: James Daniel­­­) ; Dan Visconti (photo credit: SnoStudios Photography) Tickets go on sale today for the latest brainchild of creator and librettist Cerise Jacobs, the video game opera PermaDeath. Hailed by Opera magazine as “intrepid and artistically ambitious,” Jacobs is quickly establishing a body of original operatic work that blends two of her great passions, myth and technology, in compelling and relevant contemporary stories. PermaDeath, her most technologically sophisticated work to date, premieres at Boston's Cutler Majestic Theater from September 27-29.

The tenor Charles Sy, a native of Toronto, is the First Place winner of the Oratorio Society of New York's 2018 Lyndon Woodside Oratorio-Solo Competition. The award was announced by Competition Chairwoman Janet Plucknett following a performance by eight finalists in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall on Saturday, April 14. The Oratorio-Solo Competition, the only competition to focus exclusively on oratorio singing, is now in its 42nd year.

The 2018 McCammon Voice Competition judges have chosen the semi-finalists for the eighteenth biennial competition, to be held on March 16, 2018 at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The finals will be held March 17, 2018 at Bass Performance Hall. This year's competitors are David Araujo, Amanda Blue, Nicolette Book, Ryan Bradford, Rachael Braustein, Kathleen Buccleugh, Chelsea Coyne, Danielle Davis, Peter Scott Drackley, Helen Huang, Hao Hu, Emily Michiko Jensen, Abigail Kempson, Chonghwa Kim, Abigail Levis, Brandon Morales, Elizabeth Moran, Langelihle Mngxati, Chong Yoon Noh, Brittany Nickell, Yulan Piao, Anthony Reed, Michael St. Peter and Andrew Wannigman.

Grammy-Award winning American organist Paul Jacobs will appear as the featured soloist in three organ concertos with conductor Julian Wachner and his NOVUS Orchestra at Trinity Church Wall Street (75 Broadway, New York, NY 10006), Thursday afternoon, February 22nd, 2018, 1 pm. The program will include Francis Poulenc's Concerto for Organ, Timpani and Strings in G minor; the New York premiere of Christopher Rouse's Organ Concerto; and Julian Wachner's 'Logos,' the first movement of his Triptych for Organ and Orchestra.

National Chorale, New York's premier professional choral company under the Artistic Direction of Everett McCorvey, continues its 2017-2018 Season at Lincoln Center with the New York Premiere of Angela Rice's Thy Will Be Done on Friday, March 16, 2018 at 8pm at the David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, 10 Lincoln Center Plaza, NYC. Tickets are $30-100 and are available at www.nationalchorale.com or by calling (212) 333-5333.

Creator and librettist Cerise Jacobs – hailed by Opera magazine as “intrepid and artistically ambitious” – is quickly establishing a body of original operatic work that blends two of her great passions, myth and technology, in compelling and relevant contemporary stories. Her latest venture, premiering at Boston's Cutler Majestic Theater on September 27-29 of this year, is the video game opera PermaDeath, co-written with her son Pirate Epstein, founder of the video game company SqueePlay and a former New England Halo champion. Composed by Dan Visconti, perhaps best known in the opera world as the composer of Opera Philadelphia's recent Andy Warhol-themed ANDY: A Popera, the opera is directed by New York-based opera director Sam Helfrich, who helmed the first performances in New York of Hungarian composer Péter Eötvös's Angels in America at New York City Opera last year. PermaDeath is produced by White Snake Projects, headed by Boston producer and Artistic Director of TEDxCambridge Georgia Lyman, with Jacobs as Executive Producer.

This spring, Trinity Church Wall Street's “indispensable and unmissable” (New York Times) array of free, ambitious musical offerings, many of which are professionally filmed, streamed live and available on-demand, turns to a celebration of the centennial of iconic New York composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein.