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Tuesday, November 15, 2022 7:00 PM
Pangea
(178 2nd Ave, New York, NY 10003)
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OVERVIEW
Fresh Squeezed Opera presents its 9th annual Showcase of new works for voice and chamber ensemble. FSO's 2022-23 season is focused on comedy and making people laugh. So often, classical music, and especially contemporary opera, is serious. But what would Mozart and Donizetti say about 21st century operatic repertoire? Where are the laughs?
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Therefore, our Showcase's theme is "I just want to have a nice fucking day," and will present seven new comedic pieces written for voice and chamber ensemble, performed by the Fresh Squeezed Opera Ensemble. These works were selected from an open call for scores yielding almost 150 submissions by FSO's Board.
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COMPOSERS
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Ashi Day
Robert McCauley
Clover Nahabedian
Chris Sivak
Paul David Thomas
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MUSICIANS
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Victoria Benson, voice
Denise Crawfort Cheng, voice
Jane Hoffman, voice
Markus Kaitila, piano
Veronica Mak, voice
Claire Myers McCormick, voice
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PROGRAM
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Patti Rides the DART
Music by Paul David Thomas, Text by Patti Eubanks Adams
New York Premiere
Performed by Jane Hoffman, voice, Markus Kaitila, piano, Lish Lindsey, flute
From the composer: “I’ve always said that crazy things happen everywhere, and you just need to have your eyes open to them.” And so begins another online post by Patti Eubanks Adams about her latest (mis)adventures riding the Dallas Area Rapid Transit. The result is a set of seven musical miniatures, moving through numerous genres and styles.
Hotdog Eating Contest
Music by Clover Nahabedian, Text by Victor Florence
New York Premiere
Performed by Veronica Mak, voice, Markus Kaitila, piano
From the composer: The piece is about a couple whose fetish is to record hot dog eating contests and watch them backwards. Musically, this is set as an 'oompah' kind of jig, that slowly gets distorted and more and more dissonant to match the way that the text devolves into weirdness.
For Whom the Dog Tolls
Music and text by Ashi Day
New York Premiere
Performed by Denise Crawfort Cheng, voice, Markus Kaitila, piano
“For Whom the Dog Tolls” is a gripping tale of deception, entrapment, and murder, as perpetrated by a cute Canadian dog on a bunch of ducks. The music was developed from countless hours of watching dogs, aiming to capture their joix de vivre. With its sole character delighted and victorious at every moment in the story, it was written to be a specific counterbalance to the current operatic cannon, which asks women performers to embody trauma and manipulation, or to be heroes within extremely narrow bounds of agency.
Animals Are Jerks
Music and text by Chris Sivak
Performed by Victoria Benson, voice, Markus Kaitila, piano, Paul Moskalew, cello
From the composer: When I was a tiny tot on vacation with my family, we were at some kind of family-oriented western frontier type town when a fully grown - massive - turkey jumped on me. The seminal memory I have is of me running, crying inconsolably, through the streets until I was collected and consoled by my parents. I remember one of the workers exclaiming, “I guess that turkey is going in the pot tonight!”
Accounting Sheep
Music by Robert McCauley, text by Brian Wibecan
World Premiere
Performed by Claire Myers McCormick, voice, Markus Kaitila, piano
From the composer: My friend Brian Wibecan posts pithy and funny remarks on Facebook. I thought Brian’s text was perfect to set – internal rhymes, puns and rich sentences. My musical setting would not have existed without his words.