Organization

Washington National Opera

Orchestra

The Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra

Conductor

David Bloom

WNO chamber ensamble

Lighting designer

A.J. Guban

Stage director

Chloe Treat

Costume designer

Timm Burrow

englanti

American Opera Initiative: Three One-Act Operas

Washington D.C.

United States

John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

Terrace Theater

American Opera Initiative: Opera anthology Various

Public

*New Work

Approved

Talented creative teams. Powerful stories. All-original opera. WNO’s acclaimed commissioning program for contemporary American opera enters its 11th exciting season—showing how short opera can move and inspire us! Talented composer-librettist teams will showcase three world premiere one-act operas with the Cafritz Young Artists among the casts.


American Opera Initiative (AOI) mentorship is led by Director Christopher Cano, Artistic Advisor and librettist Kelley Rourke, librettist mentor Deborah Brevoort, composer mentor Kamala Sankaram, and conductor David Bloom, who will lead a chamber orchestra of WNO Orchestra members.

AOI Team

Laura Jobin-Acosta is a multi-cultural composer/soprano with a focus on vocal music. In addition to the American Opera Initiative, recent accomplishments include OPERA America IDEA Resident Composer at the National Opera Center, 2021-2022 & Finalist in BMP: "Next Gen" as part of Beth Morrison Projects, 2021. Recent commissions from Ensemble Pi, Canterbury Choral Society, Brick Church & Five Boroughs Music Festival. Current opera projects: La Alcaldesa, a full-length opera about Puerto Rico's “Doña Fela”, the first woman to be elected as mayor of a capital city in the Americas, and The Curious Lady of Lyme Regis, about paleontologist Mary Anning. Upcoming performances include Breaking the Barrier: a setting of poems by Harlem Renaissance poet Claude McKay for choir, soloists, organ and jazz ensemble. As a regular performer of new and classic work, Laura's professional singing experience expands internationally. Her education includes a BM in Classical Voice from Denver University and MM in Classical Composition from SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Music. She is based in New York City. www.laurajobinacosta.com.

Elizabeth Gartman is a composer and soprano currently based between Berlin, Germany and New York City. Her compositions explore the implications of the voice paired with the physical body, process in performance, and active listening and response. Elizabeth’s music has been commissioned by companies such as New Chamber Ballet, the NYC Virtuoso Singers, Beth Morrison Projects, Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Chemie, InfraSound Ensemble, and others. Accolades include being named Runner Up of Beth Morrison Project’s 2022 Next Gen Cycle 2, the William Schuman Prize for Most Outstanding Score in the BMI Student Composer Awards (2021), twice recognition as a finalist in ASCAP’s Morton Gould Young Composer Competition (2021, 2019), the Karl Canter Prize for Orchestral Composition (2021), and the Giampaolo Bracali Composition Award (2021), among others. Elizabeth holds degrees from the Manhattan School of Music and the University of Illinois. www.elizabethgartman.com.

Composer and pianist Joy Redmond (she/her) was born in California in 1999 and grew up in Yonkers, New York. She is currently pursuing a Master of Music degree at The Juilliard School, where she studies with Matthias Pintscher, and where she also earned a bachelor’s in 2021. Currently, Joy’s musical pursuits include composing for concert, stage, and media works, collaborating with other artists as a producer and arranger, and performing on keyboards in a variety of genres. Recent projects include a chamber opera with libretto by Julia Hoch which was commissioned by and premiered at Concordia Conservatory with conductor James Lowe, an orchestra piece for the Juilliard Orchestra, and a choral work for The New York Virtuoso Singers. Joy has been recognized with honors including a Davidson Fellowship, four ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Awards, and a BMI Student Composer Award. Festivals she has participated in include Chamber Music Northwest, the National Youth Orchestra, Chelsea Music Festival, and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute.

Sam Norman is a lyricist and librettist. With composer Richie Johnsen, he wrote the short opera THREE PENELOPES, which premiered at the Royal College of Music in 2022. His other recent work includes book and lyrics for COME DINE WITH ME: THE MUSICAL, which received an off-West End showing in early 2023, and BLACK HOLES LIKE DONUTS, which premiered in NYC in 2022. As a teenager, Sam authored a book of comic poems, A Teen’s Guide to Modern Manners (Little, Brown), and won the Stephen Spender Prize for Poetry in Translation. His operatic and musical theatre work has been produced and/or developed at venues including the Lincoln Center, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Symphony Space, Hackney Empire, NYU, and the Edinburgh Fringe, as well as on a range of podcasts. He is a graduate of Oxford University and NYU Tisch. www.samuelnorman.com.

José G. Alba Rodríguez was born in 1991 in a small town in Jalisco, Mexico, the second of six children in a Mexican working-class family. He and his family moved to Kennett Square, PA in 2004. José displayed an early interest in literature after reading J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, and Octavio Paz’s prolific works. He studied marketing at West Chester University and dramatic writing at NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study; interned as an editor for L’OFFICIEL; and premiered a song at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in 2022 in collaboration with composer Jaime Lozano. José is a bilingual poet, screenwriter, playwright, librettist, and lyricist. His poetically-charged writings, meticulous eye for imagery, and sharp dialogue, conjure worlds depicting empathetic characters, difficult circumstances, and the dark side of humanity. He is currently pursuing an MFA in the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Melisa Tien is a playwright, lyricist, and librettist invested in making formally unconventional, socially relevant, emotionally evocative work.  A resident of New Dramatists, she is co-author of the operas The Big Swim (Asia Society Texas Center/Houston Grand Opera, 2024), Song of the Nightingale (On Site Opera, 2023), The Beehive (University of Northern Iowa, 2023), and Family Heirloom (Experiments in Opera, 2023); co-author of the music-theater works Swell (HERE, 2021), Daylight Saving, and Mary; author of the plays Best Life (JACK, 2022), Yellow Card Red Card (Ice Factory, 2017), The Boyd Show, and Familium Vulgare; co-creator of the podcast/auditory experience Active Listening; and creator of the ongoing theatrical experiences Untitled Landscape and Community Forest.  She has been published in the anthology Theater Artists Making Theatre With No Theater (Tripwire Harlot Press, 2020) and the anthology Modern Music for New Singers: 21st Century American Art Songs (2021). BA, UCLA; MFA, Columbia University. www.melisatien.com.

English

American Opera Initiative: Three One-Act Operas by Various, Alkaen (2024/2024), Ohjannut Chloe Treat,, Musiikinjohto David Bloom, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington D.C., United States

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