VEAL
Inspired by true events, VEAL traces the 12-hour journey of Andrew ‘Andy’ Veal from Athens, Georgia to Ground Zero, NYC where he commits suicide. Told through flashbacks embodying the politics and events that shape his world, VEAL is innovative in form and speaks to America’s emerging post-capitalist moment.
Daniel Huntley Solon received an MFA in Writing for Stage and Broadcast Media at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and was selected for the Jerwood Opera Writing Foundation course 2014-2015 at Aldeburgh. Recently: Sex, With Benefits (EdFringe); assistant director Down By the Greenwood Side (Brighton).
Leo Hurley has written for Maya Angelou’s 80th Birthday Celebration, Europa Cantat XVIII, Beyond Words Dance and Sonnet Repertory Theatre with performances Off-Broadway, as well as Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet at the La Biennale Festival in Venice, Italy. He was awarded Best Original Score at the 2012 College Television Awards.
http://www.soundcloud.com/leo-hurley-composer
Hum
Hum is a one-woman opera by composer Edward Henderson and writer Lavinia Murray that explores listening and perception, hearing and the loss of it. The piece is made up of noise, speech and tiny, intimate sounds including a ten-person chorus using tuning forks, plastic rubbish and bells.
Edward Henderson is a composer/performer based in London making work with found sound, objects, duration and repetition. He is a member of the composers’ collective Bastard Assignments and has curated performances across London including at Nonclassical. In 2014 his opera Manspangled was showcased at the Tête à Tête Festival
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Lavinia Murray is an award-winning writer, animator/cartoonist and performer. She trained as a clown at Blackpool Circus and as a robotic dancer/mime with Annie Stainer and New York artiste Topo. She also trained as a storyteller with Ben Haggarty. Her latest play for BBC Radio 4 has just been nominated for the Peter Tinniswood Prize. She has also written for opera.
A Telephone Call
Internationally acclaimed tenor Tom Randle’s one act opera A Telephone Call is based on Dorothy Parker’s biting yet poignant poetry and prose, and features multi award-winning soprano Gillian Keith. It observes two very different women experiencing extreme emotional states, beginning with desperation and anger, and eventually arriving at acceptance and enlightenment.
Composer Tom Randle is best known as an international opera singer, having appeared with some of the world’s most prestigious opera houses and symphony orchestras, including La Scala and the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, in a career spanning more than a quarter century. A Telephone Call is his second opera.
Canadian soprano Gillian Keith, a past winner of the Kathleen Ferrier award has sung with ENO, Covent Garden, WNO, Geneva and Oviedo Opera, embracing repertoire from early baroque to the 21st century. She has a number award winning recordings to her credit, including a recital disc of Strauss lieder, two volumes of Debussy songs and numerous Bach cantatas under John Elliot Gardiner.
http://gilliankeithsoprano.com
A TELEPHONE CALL programme note + biogs
A Telephone Call (30 mins)
Tom Randle (composer)
Libretto by Tom Randle and Nina Brazier after texts by Dorothy Parker
Tom Randle conductor
Nina Brazier director
Gillian Keith soprano
Beatrice Curnew actor
Lindy Tennent-Brown repetiteur and piano
Graham Griffiths violin
Teresa Henderson violin
Liz Monahan violin
Andrew Pearce violin
Guy Raybould viola
Geoff Irwin viola
Kate Valdar cello
Clare Elliot cello
Peter Taunton double bass
The libretto is drawn from Dorothy Parker’s monologue A Telephone Call, integrated with poetry from three of her collections. We witness two women going through extreme emotional states, beginning with desperation, fear, anger and resentment, and arriving at enlightenment and acceptance. The women become fully empowered in the final movement, which is based on the Bach chorale Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern (How beautifully shines the morning star), as they greet the new morning after going through the darkness of the night before
Tom Randle began studies in composition and conducting before making a switch to voice. He combines a busy international career as a tenor along with composing and his music has been performed in a number of festivals and theatres in the UK, Europe and the US, including Buxton and Presteigne festivals, the ROH Linbury Studio, Lille Opera and the Broad Stage concert hall in Los Angeles.
Nina Brazier Upcoming productions include The Merry Widow for Ryedale Festival Opera, scenes at the Royal College of Music and a National Tour of Carmen. She has worked as a Staff and Assistant Director for the Royal Opera, the Bayerische Staatsoper, ENO, WNO and Opera North. Previous credits include productions for Ryedale, Lammermuir, Tête à Tête and Grimeborn festivals. Nina has been a visiting director at the Italian Opera Summer School, Guildhall School of Music & Drama and Birkbeck University.
HUM programme note + biogs
Hum
Edward Henderson (composer)
Lavinia Murray (librettist)
Presented by Bastard Assignments
performers: Tim Cape
Edward Henderson
Louis D’Heurdieres
Caitlin Rowley
Building on their 2014 collaboration Manspangled, Edward Henderson and Lavinia Murray have developed Hum. Four performers gradually work their way through a list of actions eventually reciting a narrative exploring hearing loss. The gestures are intimate to the performers and suggest an interiority that the audience is locked out of.
In his work with Lavinia, Edward investigates the junction between words and music. Texts sit unresponsively alongside music, sometimes in competition.
Edward Henderson makes work with instructional scores, found objects, repetition and duration. He studied Music at the University of Cambridge and Composition at Trinity Laban where he won the 2014 Directors’ Prize for Composition. He is a Director of the composers’ collective Bastard Assignments and contributes work to their shows in south London including the S/M/L and At Your Place series. Edward’s work has been performed at Nonclassical’s clubnight, Tête à Tête Opera Festival and 840.
http://www.bastardassignments.com
Lavinia Murray is an award-winning writer, animator/cartoonist and performer. She trained as a clown at Blackpool Circus and as a robotic dancer/mime with Annie Stainer and New York artiste Topo. She also trained as a storyteller with Ben Haggarty. Her latest play for BBC Radio 4 has just been nominated for the Peter Tinniswood Prize. She has also written for opera.
VEAL programme notes + biogs
VEAL
Daniel Huntley Solon (librettist)
Leo Richard Hurley (composer)
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Leo Richard Hurley conductor
Daniel Huntley Solon director
Alexander Rawlins assistant director
Ben Jacobs techinical director
Shannon Ashleigh Navarro Mary-Anne
Thomas Schlordt Andy
Osvaldo Iturriada Pete/Pledge 2
Sian Crisp Gwen/Betty
Leigh Jordan Mike
Alex Fobbester Pledge 3
David Crowden Pledge 1
Jean-Bernard Marie piano
Julia Stone violin
Miriam Wakeling cello
Inspired by true events and derived from archival documents, the libretto for VEAL was Daniel’s final project while at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Told through flashbacks embodying the politics of election-year America and some events that may have shaped Andy’s worldview, VEAL is an attempt at referencing the unease of an empire in decline. While most elements are autobiographical, some details were dramatized with a conscious sensitivity to factual evidence and non-defamatory extrapolations.
Daniel Huntley Solon is an American theatre practitioner based in London. He received an MFA in Writing for Stage and Broadcast Media from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and is a participant in the current Jerwood Opera Writing Foundation Course at Aldeburgh Music. Directing: The Greene Card at The Space in London and assistant to Susannah Waters on the Brighton Festival commission of Birtwistle’s Down By the Greenwood Side.
Leo Richard Hurley has written music for Maya Angelou’s 80th Birthday Celebration, Grammy Award winner Pharoah Sanders, and Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet at the 2009 La Biennale Festival in Venice. Recent commissions have come from the Turin Philharmonic Orchestra as well as Europa Cantat XVIII. Mr. Hurley was the winner of Best Original Score at the 33rd Academy of Arts and Letters College Television Awards for ZomRomCom: The Musical, and the 2009 ASCAP Young Composer’s Award.
rough for opera 