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/

Rehearsals are under way for the semi-staged reading at the American Opera Center April 10.  The cast is extraordinary:  Keith Phares, baritone, as William Carlos Williams; Katherine Pracht, mezzo, as his wife Floss; John Taylor Ward, bass-baritone, as Ezra Pound.  A stellar ensemble of 8 singers and 4 musicians, fielded by ASCAP/CMA 2016 award winning ensemble Cantata Profana, led by artistic director Jacob Ashworth.  Louisa Proske, fresh from yet another hit, Heartbeat Opera’s Lucia, is directing.  Williams, Flossie and I are in fantastic hands!

She Never Lost a Passenger

I am tremendously excited that Lyric Opera of Kansas City is going to premier the new orchestration of my first commissioned opera.  This story of Harriet Tubman has been produced around the country continuously over the past 22 years.  The production will be the centerpiece of the Lyric’s renowned Opera Camp with soprano Roberta Gumbel and tenor Nathan Grannar reprising their roles from the original production as Harriet Tubman and Philadelphia abolitionist/historian William Grant Still.

I’m also pleased to report that Opera Kansas did a second round of performances this year of Passenger, touching a few thousand more children and teachers with her story in music.  Again, hats off Paul Brodene Smith in Wichita!

Postcards from America

It’s always nice to hear from people who are performing pieces of mine.  Ben Serna-Grey will be performing the oboe and piano work on his master’s recital at University of British Columbia on April 24.

Last February Opera Kansas, despite the miserable fiscal scene in that state, took this opera into 12 schools. Artistic director Paul Brodene Smith reported “about 300 kids sang with us on stage and we had an overall attendance number for all the performances of 3393.” This year there is strong demand that they revive their production. “In fact the program was so successful one of the principals suggested that we should offer it each year and return to participating schools on a three year rotation.” In addition, they are raising funds to produce a theatrical performance with the new ensemble orchestration. It’s so great to hear news like this from a state like that. Hats off big-time to Opera Kansas!

New Recording

MSR Classics is producing an album of my violin-centric pieces with Hermestänze as the title work. Jacob Ashworth (commissioner), violin, and Lee Dionne, piano, will be playing it, and it will be accompanied by A Garden’s Time Piece, with Jessica Petrus, soprano, and Solo Sonata, with Jacob playing both violin and viola. Release is targeted for second half of 2016.

The News from Poems

This 2-hour ensemble opera now has its own works page. Please visit this new page to hear arias and excerpts and read program notes.

Since Center for Contemporary Opera’s staged reading of the first portion of the opera in November 2013, I have finished composing and am preparing a concert reading of the whole score in an arrangement for 4 players in early April at the American Opera Center. I have terrific principal singers lined up: Keith Phares, baritone, as William Carlos Williams; Katherine Pracht, mezzo, as Flossie Williams; and Joshua Jeremiah, baritone, as Ezra Pound. The director is Louisa Proske, co-director of Heartbeat Opera, (fresh from a major hit at the Berkshire Theater Festival) and members of Cantata Profana will be playing the arrangement for clarinet, violin, double bass and piano. Jacob Ashworth, artistic director of Cantata Profana and co-music director of Heartbeat Opera, will conduct.

This 2-hour ensemble opera now has its own works page.
Please visit this new page to hear arias and excerpts and read program notes.

I’m really looking forward to my first trip to Tulsa for their production of The Giver, January 10 and 11.  While there, I’ll be doing a Composer Forum and giving a master class to composition students at bART Center for Music.  That should be a lot of fun.

She Never Lost a Passenger

This opera, my first commission twenty years ago, is having two productions coming up in the new year.  Opera Kansas, in Wichita, is bringing this story about Harriet Tubman to twelve schools in February.  Children in those schools will learn the hefty chorus part with their music teachers (I am thrilled to hear there still are music teachers in schools) and get to perform with professional singers for their schools and their parents.  In writing this opera, I was determined to use a lot of traditional music that recent generations of kids don’t seem to hear any more: Go Down Moses, Simple Gifts, Follow the Drinking Gourd are all woven into the narrative.  Thanks to Dr. Paul Brodene Smith, artistic director of Opera Kansas, for carrying this torch and bringing Harriet’s story – and the experience of singing, hearing and seeing opera – to so many people.

And I’m super excited to be commissioned to orchestrate Passenger for a chamber ensemble of eight players, something I have wanted to do for a long time.  Erie Opera Theater, in Erie, Pa., will be doing it in May with a brand new scoring for oboe/eng.horn, clarinet/b.clar, horn, percussion, 2 violins, cello and piano.  Passenger was commissioned in 1994 for piano only, and has had over a dozen productions since then.  I think having a chamber ensemble might now make it viable as a proper main stage show in tandem with another piece or simply on its own as an offering for families with children 5 and all the way up.  Thanks so much, Brent Weber, artistic director of Erie Opera Theater!

Having had such a good experience with the excerpts of Miranda’s Waltz performed by Ravel Virtual Studios, I asked them to create three short instrumental excerpts of music from The Giver. These are three of the bits that underscore projections showing the transfer of memories from the Giver to Jonas. Once again, I’m very pleased with what Ron Artinian at Ravel produced. You can hear them on the works page for The Giver: susankander.net/works/the-giver/

Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to spending three days withTulsa Opera in January for their production!

Tulsa Opera will be producing The Giver January 10-11, 2015. This is the opera’s first “second production”, following its premiers in commissioning cities Kansas City and Minneapolis in 2012. The production will be directed by Stanley M. Garner, conducted by Aaron Beck and feature the young professionals of Tulsa Opera’s Young Artist Program alongside Tulsa Youth Opera, their training program for children in grades 3-12.

Miranda’s Waltz

I am proud to finally post excerpts from this 2009 National Symphony Orchestra commission for Narrator and orchestra. Since recording live performances of orchestras is completely illegal, I never had any means of allowing people to hear any of the 27-minute score. (This is the big Catch 22 all composers live with.) After a hearty push from my friend and colleague, Australian composer Kevin Purcell, and a terrific recommendation from composer Roberto Sierra, I had 7 excerpts, about 12 minutes, “virtually performed” by Ravel Virtual Studios. Ron Artinian, head of the studio, was a delight to work with and he and his colleagues delivered a marvelous performance. Now, five years later, I finally have a demo of this piece for artistic directors, conductors and concert programmers to listen to that truly delivers the music and finally puts Miranda’s Waltz in the “known quantity” column. The story piece is aimed at families with children age 7 and up. Please listen to the excerpts on the Miranda’s Waltz works page!

I am so pleased to post this response from Ani Kavafian, one of the leading violinists of our day, Artist Member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Professor of Violin at Yale.

“Susan Kander’s cycle for violin and piano, Hermestanze, is a wonderful work on many levels. The 14 short movement titles takes one through the life of Hermes, naming his parents, Zeus and Maia. the Lyre, an instrument folklore claims he invented, the river Styx, as well as his brother Apollo, the god of music. These references give the listener Ms. Kander’s perception of a musical journey through a part of Greek Mythology, but more importantly, we become aware of her virtuosic compositional ability to use the range and abilities of the violin and piano. As Hermes was a many faceted character, Ms. Kander uses this work to explore a variety of instrumental sounds (most especially striking in the Lyre movement). Throughout the 30 minute work, my interest never wavered. There is a vital energy to the writing and as each movement came to a close, I looked forward to hearing the next.”

Thank you, Ani!

Hermestänze World Premier
On a different plain altogether, a piece I wrote this fall will have its world premier on January 31 at Yale School of Music.  My son, Jacob Ashworth, commissioned “a song cycle for violin and piano” for his MMA degree recital because he was jealous of pianists and singers who have plenty of cycles written for them (think Schumann, for starters.) But violinists have nothing comparable, no series of thematically linked, short evocative pieces.  Ergo, Hermestänze:  14 movements one way or another about the god Hermes.   Also on the program will be a world premier commissioned by Jacob to fill another gap in the violin repertoire: Sonata para violine solo, variations for solo violin by Mexican composer Francisco Ladron de Guevara.  Lee Dionne is Jacob’s fantastic pianist, also an MMA candidate at Yale.  This concert will be streamed live, January 31 at 8 pm, at http://music.yale.edu/livestream.  Tune in!

A Garden’s Time Piece
Jessica Petrus, soprano, and Jacob Ashworth, violin, gave a gorgeous performance at the recent concert by Cantata Profana in New Haven on December 15.  Cantata Profana is a new ensemble for vocal and instrumental chamber music.  Visit their website at www.cantataprofana.com.

One False Move
This opera about girl bullying was produced in Guanzhou, China this September at the Utahloy International School.  Madeline du Toit, the faculty member who directed and spearheaded the production, reported that it was extremely successful and led to very helpful – and in some cases critical – discussion among the students and faculty. I’m so pleased that this short anatomy of how bullying can happen under the radar continues to be so useful.

The Lunch Counter
David Sogg, bassoonist, played the quietly ecstatic movement “Jennifer” at Compline at Heinz Memorial Chapel in Pittsburgh on September 23.  Very cool.

A word about the opera:

William Carlos Williams (1883-1963):  modernist poet/dedicated physician to the largely unwashed.  Florence Williams: doctor’s wife and poet’s wife — an epic double whammy. Ezra Pound, mentor and friend to Williams, leader of the great migration of arts and letters to Europe in the early 1920’s.  Williams wants to grab poetry around the neck and fling it into the 20th century here, in America, the land his immigrant parents gave him.  Ezra wants Williams to move to Europe where art and poetry actually matter.  Floss wants to find a way to matter to her husband, to live with and stay with this mercurial, philandering, shy, passionate man.

Also, under the heading: Serendipity!, check out this blog, written by poet Daniel Nester and posted on the Best American Poetry site Oct. 25.

Principal singers for this reading are:
William Carlos Williams: Joshua Jeremiah, baritone
Florence (Flossie) Williams: Kara Cornell, mezzo
Ezra Pound: Aaron Theno, bass-baritone
Multi-role tenor: David Gordon

Plus an ensemble of 9. Peter Fancovic is the fantastic pianist. Yana Tiefbenkel, from Moscow, the administrative assistant and extra pair of hands on the keyboard.

Why Dr. Williams?

I began to read Williams’ poetry in 2004 when I was commissioned by the Grammy-award-winning Kansas City Chorale to compose a choral cycle for them.  I chose six short imagist poems for the cycle and found I loved setting Williams’ language.  For my song cycle Five Movements for my Father, I went back to Williams again for three of the five movements.  Along the way I learned more about the man (difficult, passionate and many-sided, to say the least) and his moment.  The three principal roles are Williams, his wife Flossie and Ezra Pound (another difficult character.)  Here is my introduction to the libretto:

“William Carlos Williams, though a divisive character in American letters, is generally acknowledged to be the father of twentieth century American poetry.   He was also, starting in 1905 and for over fifty years, a family doctor eventually specializing in pediatrics and obstetrics.

Dr. Williams was sure about two things – both new and questionable ideas in his time:

–A poet could be a poet in and about America

–American needs its poets desperately, as he wrote:

                                 “It is difficult
 to get the news from poems
                      yet men die miserably every day
                                for lack
of what is found there.”

It is this last certitude, which WCW’s whole writing life embodies, that casts its resonance over the opera.”

A Garden’s Time Piece
I was treated to a magical performance of this piece for violin and soprano at a concert in Scarsdale, N.Y. in March.  Jacob Ashworth (full disclosure: my son) and sparkling soprano Jessica Petrus performed it just the way it wants to be done:  like two people being one people.  The nicest thing a composer can hear after a concert is “I wish I could hear that again.”  You can hear excerpts on the piece’s work page. Thank you both, Jacob and Jessica!

She Never Lost a Passenger
This short opera about Harriet Tubman had its debut as a mainstage offering at Amarillo Opera in February.   It was a decided success, according to David O’Dell, artistic director; in addition to its regular performances, its two day-time performances were attended by 2700 schoolchildren.  I was especially happy to hear that tenor Nathan Grannar, who in 1996 originated the dual role of William Still, black abolitionist/John, the runaway slave, sang the same role in Amarillo.  Over the years, this opera has been done all over the country, usually by members of a company’s young artists program.  I am proud to relate that another very exciting veteran of this role is the magnificent Russell Thomas, Metropolitan Opera regular and rising international star, who, as a young artist, sang the role for Shreveport Opera.

One False Move
Having been produced in opera companies, universities, schools and choruses all over this country and by Capetown Opera, S. A., (it was so successful they did it again six  months later,) this short opera about bullying has just been granted grand rights for a production in Guangzhou, China at the Utahloy International School next fall.