"One-Track Mind": 2008

April 22nd, 2008

Rhymes With Opera

Baltimore, Maryland
with Matt Diamond and Will Chang
Friday, May 23, 2008
9:00pm, Load of Fun
120 W North Ave
Baltimore, MD 21201-5813

$5 suggested donation

Durham, North Carolina
with pulsoptional, Durham’s Band Of Composers
Saturday, May 24, 2008
9:00pm, Bull City Headquarters
723 N. Mangum St.
Durham, NC 27701

$5 suggested donation at the door

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rhymes with dolly

March 18th, 2008

george here. a little bit more about the dolly opera. by the way, look for an “official” “announcement” of our upcoming tour schedule soon! baltimore on may 23, durham on may 24. rhymes with opera brings new opera to where you live! (well, where *we* live, anyway.)

i’m working on my piece with playwright John Clum, currently the head of the theater studies department here at Duke. last fall, i wrote music for John’s production of Shakespeare’s Pericles, where the entire ensemble produced the music; the actors sang, played and strummed throughout the play.

this new project is a short opera about a man obsessed with dolly parton. the inspiration came with Robert Maril telling me about this documentary that came out on LOGO (and probably a few movie theaters) a while ago, which chronicled the fanatic fans who followed dolly everywhere. they were in love with dolly’s image, dolly was in love with dolly’s image, and all of this slowly became “heartbreak express”.

a little bit from the beginning of the libretto:

Mama used to play me Dolly
The happy songs
She played the sad stuff after I went to bed
She thought I didn’t hear it.
For me,
even Dolly’s sad songs sound like hope.

I can’t remember when Dolly didn’t sing to me.
When I was little, I loved the sound of her voice.
It’s the voice of joy, of resilience.
Our favorite was “Here You Come Again”
Mama would pick me up in her arms and dance around the room with me.
Filled with the joy of wishful thinking.
She never stopped wanting Daddy back.
But he was in love – how does the line go? –
He was in love with long distance.

“Here you come again
Lookin’ better than a body has a right to.”

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Welcome to rhymeswithopera.org!

March 10th, 2008

Hello!

So glad you came and visited! You’re looking at the brand-new, blogger-powered website for Rhymes With Opera, a new music theater collective dedicated to bringing new opera into unconventional spaces.

We are based in Durham, North Carolina and Baltimore, Maryland, and we want to produce new works for music theater and opera on a smaller and more flexible scale. We want to perform in a variety of venues, getting out of the opera house and into intimate cafés, artful galleries and scenic parks.

Don’t get us wrong – we think theaters are perfectly marvelous places for watching new opera, but we want to expand the audience for opera and music theater to create new conversations between our artists and our audiences. We are writing exciting new stories about life as we know it today, and we want to perform these stories in their natural habitats.

Our first show will feature two performances on the East Coast: one in Durham and the other in Baltimore, in the Spring of 2008. We will be staging two brand new chamber operas, featuring soprano Bonnie Lander and baritone Robert Maril. Check back for further details!

We would like your help in getting this show on the road! Can you donate money to help us get started? No amount is too small! If you would like to contribute to our cause, see the donation information in the right-hand column.

Also, send us an e-mail if you’d like to be on our mailing list to receive regular updates about future productions.

Unconventionally Operatically Yours,

Ruby and George
Co-Artistic Directors, Rhymes With Opera

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Bonnie Lander

March 9th, 2008

Bonnie Lander will sing with Rhymes With Opera in our upcoming shows, May 23 in Baltimore and May 24 in Durham.

Soprano Bonnie Lander is a GPD student in Voice and Computer Music Performance at the Peabody Conservatory in the voice studio of Phyllis Bryn-Julson.

During the past two seasons, Bonnie has made a name for herself performing contemporary classical and electronic music by working with composers and musicians at Peabody and in the Baltimore area. On campus she has performed with the Peabody Camerata under the
direction of Gene Young and has been a repeat guest performer with the Conservatory Avant-Garde Ensemble (CAGE). In Baltimore, she appeared with the Left Bank Concert Society at the University of Maryland, College Park, performed on the An Die Musik series, and sang the lead role of The Woman in the premiere production of Catherine Reid’s The Yellow Wallpaper at Baltimore’s Theatre Project.

Last year, Bonnie received the first Phyllis Bryn-Julson Prize in Performance and Commitment to music of the 20th/21st Centuries.

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libretto shot

March 9th, 2008

the libretto for closer to mona as layed out on my floor… it’s done!!!

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Ruby Fulton

March 7th, 2008

Ruby Fulton (b. 1981) grew up in Northwest Iowa and studied at Boston University and the San Francisco Conservatory before moving to Baltimore, where she is currently working towards a doctorate at the Peabody Conservatory. Her music is built from musical and non-musical influences alike, ranging from The Beatles to buddhist philosophy to psychological patterning.

Along with composer George Lam, she is co-artistic director of Rhymes With Opera, a new opera company committed to bringing new works of opera and music-theater out of the opera house and into unconventional spaces. Her music has been performed recently at the 2007 Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA and the 2007 A•Devantgarde Festival in Munich. She has collaborated with the Peabody Opera Department, the West End String Quartet of Hartford, CT, and soprano Bonnie Lander. Upcoming projects include pieces for SONAR New Music Ensemble, marimba player Michael Compitello, and the Bay Area bass clarinet duo, Sqwonk.

Also a performer and teacher, she plays viola in the Baltimore band The Greatest City in America and teaches music theory for Peabody Preparatory. She has studied with composers Christopher Theofanidis, Moritz Eggert, Elinor Armer, Dan Becker, Charles Fussell, Tison Street and Martin Amlin.

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George Lam

March 7th, 2008

George Lam (b. 1981) works and lives in Durham, North Carolina, where he is currently pursuing graduate studies in music composition at Duke University. Recent projects and collaborations include works written for American Opera Projects, Red Clay Saxophone Quartet, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Hong Kong Voices, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Volti and the Boston University Concert Band. In addition, George has collaborated with flutist Brook Ferguson, baritone Robert Maril, violinist Lydia Miller, and writers Lap Lam, Benjamin Rogers, John Clum and Martin Zimmerman.

Along with Ruby Fulton, George is a founding co-artistic director of Rhymes With Opera, a new opera company dedicated to bringing new works of music-theater into unconventional spaces. In addition, George is also the current director of the Duke New Music Ensemble.

George studied composition at the Peabody Conservatory of Music and Boston University, and has worked with composers Scott Lindroth, Stephen Jaffe, Christopher Theofanidis, Nicholas Maw, Charles Fussell and Martin Amlin.

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Robert Maril

March 7th, 2008

a little bit about Robert Maril, who will be singing with Rhymes With Opera in our upcoming tour.

Hailing from Ponca City, Oklahoma, Robert Maril holds a B.M. in Voice Performance from DePauw University in Greencastle, IN and a M.M. in Voice Performance from Peabody Conservatory, where he studied with baritones John Shirley-Quirk and Steve Rainbolt and was the recipient of the George Castelle Memorial Award. While at Peabody, Robert sang the roles of Hans Scholl in Weisse Rose, Gherardo in Gianni Schicchi, and Macheath in The Threepenny Opera. Working with composer George Lam, he sang the premieres of the song sets Fog Argument and We Two Boys. This spring, he will sing the role of Claudio in Berlioz’s Beatrice et Benedict with Harbor Opera in New York City, followed by Opera New Jersey, where he is a Young Artist. Robert currently lives in New York City and is a member of the Sanctuary Choir at Christ Church United Methodist.

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Elisabeth Halliday

March 7th, 2008

Elisabeth Halliday completed her undergraduate work at the Johns Hopkins University and at the Peabody Conservatory, where she performed such roles as “Susanna” in Le Nozze di Figaro and “Anne” in A Little Night Music. While at Peabody, Elisabeth became heavily involved in contemporary classical music, and collaborated with many Peabody composers to perform new works. Among other projects, she premiered three chamber operas, participated in Peabody’s “24-Hour Composition Marathon,” gave a recital of Modern and Contemporary vocal music in English, and was one of the founding members of No Signal, a chamber group dedicated to performing contemporary classical music in unique and engaging ways. In 2007, Elisabeth moved to New York to study with Manhattan School of Music’s Ashley Putnam, and has since become involved with Rhymes with Opera. Elisabeth is also currently singing with the Village Light Opera and Chelsea Opera.

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We Two Boys

March 4th, 2008

George here. We’re working hard on our upcoming Durham-Baltimore tour. The title of our show is ONE-TRACK MIND, and it will feature two brand new chamber operas by me and Ruby Fulton. Mine’s about Dolly Parton, written for Robert Maril. More on that later on.

Also on the tour will be other recent pieces written for voice and instruments. We Two Boys, a short song cycle for baritone and violin with words by Benjamin Rogers will be a part of the program. Take a listen to it below, with baritone Tom Jaynes and myself on violin. The text is inspired by a poem by Walt Whitman, and describes the life-cycle of a relationship.

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