News

In late June, a new song of mine, "Resilience," was premiered at the United Nations in Vienna, Austria. The song was written at the invitation of tenor Angelo Pollak, who gave an extraordinary premiere performance with pianist Markus Hadulla. The music was adpated from two arias of my opera THE MENSCH, and the lyrics were crafted specially to fit the occasion, which was a forum on human trafficking.

This summer, I have been busy teaching composition at the Interlochen Center for the Arts. What a joy to be surrounded by music and other musicians, in the beautiful nature of northern Michigan! While at Interlochen, I got to experience a heart-wrenching premiere of the aria "Can You Imagine?" from THE MENSCH, performed by soprano Laura Osgood Brown and pianist Ya-Ju Chuang.

The month of May was pretty packed -- I attended the International Women's Brass Conference, held this year at The Hartt School in West Hartford, CT, where I got to hear wonderful performances of several of my works as well as particiapte in a composer panel. Shortly before that I was in New York for the performance of my trumpet concerto by Raymond Riccomini with the Centre Symphony, under the direction of Scott Jackson Wiley. Here's a taste of that performance:

I recently learned that this piece is on the repertoire list for the Boise Philharmonic auditions.

Act II of my opera THE MENSCH received an absolutely glorious performance at Lyric Theatre@Illinois in early May. The entire piano-vocal score is now complete, and I am orchestrating the full opera. I am seeking a professional opera company or collegiate program to help further develop the work. Here are two arias from the Act II performance: