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“Book of Gazes”
Soul Cannon
Jenny Olivia Johnson
Rhymes With Opera
Artist Biographies
Jenny Olivia Johnson composes music that ranges from compressed 20-minute operas to epic pop songs to highly abstract religious masses. Her work is deeply influenced by minimalism, noise rock, 80’s pop songs, and vernacular television, and she also draws a great deal of inspiration from her academic work on synaesthesia, acoustic memory, and childhood trauma.
Jenny has collaborated with such artists and ensembles as ICE, Alarm Will Sound, the Asko|Schoenberg Ensemble, Ensemble Robot, Bang on a Can, the Arditti Quartet, orkest de ereprijs, Voices of Change, the Young People’s Chorus of New York City, composer and singer Corey Dargel, organist Maxine Thevenot, flutist Janet McKay, soprano Megan Schubert, and New York City Opera, who performed two of her short operas at their VOX Contemporary Opera festivals in 2006 and 2007. Jenny is also a drummer, most recently active with Winter Company (a laptop/percussion duo with composer Paula Matthusen), and indie rock band RENMINBI.
Jenny’s honors and awards include the NYU Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship (2008-09), an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award (2006), two CAP grants from the American Music Center (2006, 2007), the Prix de Composition from the Conservatoire Americain de Fontainebleau (2004), and an Honorable Mention for the 2007 Lise Waxer Prize from the Society for Ethnomusicology. She has held artist residencies at the Atlantic Center for the Arts (2005, 2008) and the Banff Centre for the Arts (2008), and was recently a finalist for the 2008 Gaudeamus Prize.
Upcoming projects include collaborations with flutist Janet McKay, pianist Isabelle O’Connell, cellist Peter Gregson, and recorder player Erik Bosgraaf.
In May 2009, Jenny completed her Ph.D. in music composition and theory at New York University, and she also holds degrees from Manhattan School of Music and Barnard College at Columbia University. In the fall of 2009, Jenny will join the faculty of Wellesley College as an Assistant Professor of Composition and Theory.
Soul Cannon is a Baltimore-based experimental hip hop band. BMore Live describes Soul Cannon as a band that “…doesn’t fit neatly into any boxes. It’s the exact opposite of today’s ring-tone hip hop.” Any Given Tuesday calls Soul Cannon an “… analog indie hip hop that you can get down with no matter your scene. Check out ‘What’s Real’ and tell me you disagree. If your spirit isn’t lifted by this song, go back to your emo records and keep sleeping.” Transformonline.com describes the band as “…at once pure jazz tinged indie rock and political hip hop…rhymes are surrounded by a killer rhythm section that alternates between straightforward, backbeat-laden hip hop and Sonic Youth-esque noise and space drones.”
Rhymes With Opera presents new opera in unexpected spaces, creating new connections between the work, the place where it is performed, and the audience. We engage different artists to collaborate and experiment in creating new works, stretching the boundaries of opera. With innovative outreach and educational programs, we hope to use opera to foster a greater sense of community. Since its start in 2008, RWO has commissioned new works by living composers, and presented these productions in venues including art galleries, parks, restaurants and alternative performance spaces.