Telling a Good Story — Making it Sing!
May 21 — June 5, 2012
Do you have an original opera / music drama / musical that you would like to have sung by professional vocalists and staged & critiqued by world-renowned composers, directors, and artists? Then the John Duffy Composers Institute may be a perfect opportunity for you.
|
About the Institute |
Founded by the Virginia Arts Festival in 2005, the
John Duffy Composers Institute is dedicated to the
inspiration, creation, and performance of new music
by living composers. It is the vision of Institute
director and founder John Duffy to provide gifted
young composers the opportunity to create and hear their compositions performed/staged while working
alongside senior master composers, singers, pianists
and theater professionals. In 2012, five emerging
Composer Fellows will be chosen to work with this
year’s Institute staff, to include senior composer John
Duffy, music director Alan Johnson, vocal coach Patrick Mason, and professional dramaturge/
director Rhoda Levine. Composer Libby Larsen and more composers, librettist and musicians of national prominence will be in residence as Institute clinicians.
Click here to download information on the 2011 John Duffy Composers Institute |
Institute Faculty |
 |
John Duffy, considered "one of the great heroes of American Music," has composed more than 300 works for symphony, orchestra, opera, theater, television and film. He is a two-time Emmy-winner and the recipient of the American Music Center's Founders' Award for Lifetime Achievement. Critics call his work, "haunting, memorable, and brilliant." |
|
 |
Rhoda Levine, an acclaimed director, choreographer, writer and teacher has worked on and off-Broadway, in London’s West End, South Africa and the Netherlands. She is the founding director of Play It By Ear, the improvisational opera group at American Opera Projects and currently teaches at Manhattan School of Music and Mannes College. |
|
 |
Patrick Mason, currently a voice teacher at the University of Colorado-Boulder, is a highly regarded baritone whose collaborations with Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Eliot Carter and George Crumb garnered him rave reviews. Mason’s recordings of standard works and contemporary music create rare artistry and insight. |
|
 |
Alan Johnson, currently the Music Director of the Frost Opera Theater and Vocal Coach at University of Miami, has led numerous opera, music theater, concert, and dance works by today’s most innovative composers including Philip Glass, Anthony Davis, Adam Guettel, and David Lang. His work has garnered awards such as the Bessie, Drama Desk, Obie Award for Sustained Excellence in Music Direction, and the Joseph Jefferson Award. |
|
 |
Libby Larsen, is one of America’s most performed living composers. She has created a catalogue of over 400 works spanning virtually every genre from intimate vocal and chamber music to massive orchestral and choral scores. Grammy Award winning and widely recorded, including over 50 CDs of her work, she is constantly sought after for commissions and premieres by major artists, ensembles, and orchestras around the world and has established a permanent place for her works in the concert repertory. |
|
|
Visiting Faculty
|
 |
Mark Campbell, Librettist, has collaborated with renowned composers John Musto, William Bolcolm, and Ricky Ian Gordon. He has been the recipient of a Grammy nomination, three Drama Desk Award nominations, two Richard Rodgers Awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a New York Foundation for the Arts Playwriting Fellowship, and a Kleban Foundation Award. |
|
 |
Donna DiNovelli has been commissioned by the San Francisco Opera (recently Heart of a Soldier), Houston Grand Opera, and the vocal ensemble, Chanticleer. As a lyricist, DiNovelli has written songs with Rachel Portman and Steven Stucky. The genre-bending work, Florida, written with her long-time collaborator Randall Eng has the distinction of being presented as both an opera at the New York City Opera’s Vox series and as a musical at the Public Theater’s New Work Now! Festival, in the same season. She has been honored with a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio residency; Manhattan Theater Club Playwriting Fellowship; and residencies at The National Musical Theater Conference; Sound Res, Lecce, Italy; and the MacDowell Colony. |
|
 |
Fred Ho, composer, writer, bandleader, and saxophonist, fuses traditional Asian and African melodies. His numerous ensembles include Green Monster Big Band, founded 2008, Monkey Orchestra, founded 1990, and Afro Asian Music Ensemble, founded 1982. His most recent commissions are Every Time I Open My Mouth to Sing for Thomas Buckner/Mutable Music Inc. and When the Real Dragons Fly for American Composers Orchestra, both in 2008. |
|
 |
Tania Leon is highly regarded as a composer and conductor and recognized for her accomplishments as an educator and advisor to arts organizations. She has been profiled on ABC, CBS, CNN, PBS, Univision, Telemundo, and independent films. León's opera Scourge of Hyacinths, commissioned by Hans Werner Henze and the City of Munich and based on a play by Wole Soyinka with staging and design by Robert Wilson, received over 20 performances throughout Europe and Mexico and took home the coveted BMW Prize. Other commissions include works for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the New World and Cincinnati Symphonies, Koussevitzky Foundation, and the NDR Sinfonie Orchester. |
|
 |
Michael Colgrass’ jazz-inspired works have been commissioned by leading organizations including the Boston and Detroit Symphonies, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Musica Aeterna Orchestra. In addition to receiving the 1978 Pulitzer Prize for his orchestral work, Déjà vu, written for the New York Philharmonic, Colgrass has been given awards and honors in a variety of musical genres: from wind bands, to chamber music, to organ festivals. |
|
 |
Frank J. Oteri is the composer advocate at the American Music Center and the founding editor of its web magazine NewMusicBox. An outspoken crusader for new music and the breaking down of barriers between genres, Frank has written for publications including BBC Music, Chamber Music, Ear Magazine, Stagebill/Playbill, Symphony, Time Out New York and the Revised New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, has been a frequent radio and pre-concert speaker, and has served as the host for ASCAP's Thru The Walls showcase, Meet The Composer's The Works in Minneapolis, and his own 21st Century Schizoid Music series at the Cornelia Street Café. |
|
Institute Dates: May 21-June 5, 2012
Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA
Interested applicants should submit the following:
• John Duffy Composers Institute Application
• 1-2 page resume
• Two sample opera/music drama scenes arranged for piano
• Recording of scenes
|
|
HOW TO APPLY:
Fill out an application by downloading the John Duffy Composers Institute Application (pdf) here.
You may also request a copy of the application by contacting:
Jacob Fowler
John Duffy Composers Institute Coordinator
440 Bank Street
Norfolk, VA 23510
757-282-2800 • Fax: 757-282-2787
jfowler@vafest.org
|
Restrictions: For the two sample scenes, use any combination of the following voices: two sopranos, one mezzo-soprano, one tenor, one baritone, one bass-baritone
Deadline: All Applications and Materials are due to the
above address by December 30, 2011
All Fellows chosen to participate are awarded housing and tuition costs paid for by the Virginia Arts Festival.
|
The John Duffy Composers Institute is co-presented with Old Dominion University and the F. Ludwig Diehn Composers Room.
Additional funding provided by the F. Ludwig Diehn Fund of The Norfolk Foundation and the The Aaron Copland Fund for Music.
DOWNLOAD our John Duffy Composers Institute brochure
|
|
