News from July

The News from Poems

The concert reading in April at the National Opera Center was tremendous.  Please see below for the fantastic participants and enjoy this four-minute video from the reading. Thanks hugely to all for their artistry and passion!

The News from Poems is my only opera undertaken without a commission.  I have written it, libretto and music, over the past ten years around other work and the April reading has shown that it is whole and ripe and ready for the finish work that goes on in production.

  • Currently scored for a quartet of instruments, orchestrations for chamber ensembles of 7 or 13, as well as for chamber orchestra are possible as well.
  • The intense use of the chorus in Brechtian ensemble style, with all chorus members performing multiple solo cameo roles, makes the opera a good fit for vocal arts departments that wish to give their advanced students experience in both contemporary music and featured dramatic characters to develop.   In this respect, a collaboration between an opera company and a conservatory might be one logical path towards a premier.
  • The opera requires very little in the way of a set as it was conceived to use primarily  lighting, costume pieces and props deployed by ensemble members to instantaneously  convey different spaces and times.
  • Perusal score available in pdf or hard copy.
  • More audio excerpts at http://susankander.net/works/the-news-from-poems-2/