Music of Remembrance tours Heggie/Scheer double bill
“MOR’s focus is emphatically on the present-day relevance of humanity’s darkest chapters.” –Seattle Times
Music of Remembrance Presents
Double Bill of Jake Heggie & Gene Scheer Operas
Another Sunrise & For a Look or a Touch
2023 Tour Performances
May 21 in Seattle • May 24 in San Francisco • May 27-28 in Chicago
Chicago, IL – March 7, 2023 – Music of Remembrance is a Seattle-based performing arts organization with a robust history of commissioning “testimonies for tomorrow” – works that explore the consequences of intolerance toward the other. Now in its 25th year, Music of Remembrance (MOR) will tour two of its most successful commissions this spring, in a double bill featuring one-act operas by the acclaimed creative team of composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer. Performances will star soprano Caitlin Lynch, bass-baritone Ryan McKinny, and actor Curt Branom, with appearances at Seattle’s Benaroya Hall on May 21, 2023, San Francisco’s Presidio Theatre on May 24, 2023, and Chicago’s Athenaeum Center, in collaboration with Chicago Opera Theater, on May 27-28, 2023.
Directed by Erich Parce, this double bill pairs two richly emotional portraits of real people – and their responses to circumstances that defy comprehension. Another Sunrise is an intimate illustration of one Auschwitz survivor’s struggle to find words capable of describing her harrowing experiences to those who weren’t there. In For a Look or a Touch, two idealistic young men in love are torn apart under Nazi rule. Joseph Mechavich will conduct a chamber orchestra featuring musicians from the Seattle Symphony.
“This compelling double bill highlights the redemptive power of memory,” said MOR Artistic Director Mina Miller. “We believe these works will help audiences appreciate those touched by the Holocaust in all their complicated humanity."
Music of Remembrance was established in 1998 to honor the lessons of the Holocaust through live performances and recordings. Over the past two decades, its mission has grown to address the experience of other communities who have been excluded or persecuted for their faith, ethnicity, gender, or sexuality. MOR has commissioned over 40 new works, including song cycles, chamber works, operas, film scores, and choreography. Recent commissions have included works addressing the separation of families at the US-Mexico border, the worldwide refugee crisis, and the threat of nuclear war.
As music journalist Thomas May noted in Memeteria, “MOR has proved to be ahead of its time in grappling with issues of social justice and persecution. Commissions in recent years have become, alarmingly, more and more topical. Confronting intolerance and its destructive consequences remains an urgent struggle in our troubled era, when anti-Semitism is on the rise, targeting of refugees and immigrants is condoned by those in power, and the tools of social media amplify the same hate-fueled ideologies that motivated the Nazis.”
MOR’s commitment to addressing both timeless and contemporary themes has led to collaborations with more than 20 living composers, including Tom Cipullo, Lori Laitman, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Mary Kouyoumdjian, and Paul Schoenfield, whose MOR commission Camp Songs was a finalist for the 2003 Pulitzer Prize in Music.
“Music of Remembrance has been central and essential to my creative life as a composer for the past 17 years,” said composer Jake Heggie. “Being able to explore and share surprising perspectives and unknown stories has affected every aspect of my work. Gene Scheer and I have grown tremendously as artists and as human beings thanks to Mina Miller’s vision and determination.”
MOR SPRING 2023 TOUR
Conductor: Joseph Mechavich
Director: Erich Parce
Media Designer: Peter Crompton
Another Sunrise
Krystyna: Caitlin Lynch
For a Look or a Touch
Manfred: Ryan McKinny
Gad: Curt Branom
Chamber Ensemble
DeMarre McGill, flute
Laura DeLuca, clarinet
Mikhail Shmidt, violin
Walter Gray, cello
Jonathan Green, double bass
Jessica Choe, piano
SEATTLE
Sunday, May 21, 2023 @ 4pm
Benaroya Hall (200 University Street)
Tickets $50-65
www.seattlesymphony.org/en/benaroyahall/bh-calendar/2022-2023/22mor-heggie-scheer
SAN FRANCISCO
Wednesday, May 24, 2023 @ 7:30pm
Presidio Theatre (99 Moraga Avenue)
Tickets $15-90
www.presidiotheatre.org/show/2023musicofremembrance/
CHICAGO
Saturday, May 27, 2023 @ 7:30pm
Sunday, May 28, 2023 @ 3pm
Athenaeum Center for Thought and Culture (2936 N Southport Avenue)
Tickets $20-132
chicagooperatheater.org/season/mor
High-resolution promotional photos of casts and creative team may be downloaded here.
www.musicofremembrance.org
About Music of Remembrance
Established in 1998, Music of Remembrance (MOR) has made a unique impact through works that honor the resilience of all people excluded or persecuted for faith, ethnicity, gender, or sexuality. Its programs pay tribute to historic memory, and directly confront challenges to human rights and dignity today. In addition to its work discovering and performing music from the Holocaust, MOR is admired around the world for its leadership in commissioning and premiering new works by leading composers, including varied chamber ensembles, song cycles, choral works, dance music, film scores, musical dramas, and full-length operas. MOR’s online concerts, nine albums, three documentary films, and many outreach programs have added to the impact experienced by live audiences. MOR’s annual David Tonkonogui Memorial Award welcomes new generations along on this journey, nurturing young musicians who seek to address issues of human rights through their art.
About the Creative Team
American composer Jake Heggie has written nine full-length operas, including Dead Man Walking and Great Scott with librettos by Terrence McNally; Moby-Dick, Three Decembers, It’s a Wonderful Life, If I Were You, and Two Remain with librettos by Gene Scheer; and numerous one-acts. Hailed by the Wall Street Journal as “arguably the world’s most popular 21st-century opera and art song composer,” Heggie has also composed nearly 300 art songs, as well as chamber, choral, and orchestral works. He is currently at work with Jawole Zollar and Gene Scheer on Intelligence, a new stage work commissioned by Houston Grand Opera. A new Ivo van Hove production of Dead Man Walking will open the 23/24 season of New York’s Metropolitan Opera.
Gene Scheer’s work is noted for its scope and versatility. In addition to the many collaborations with composer Jake Heggie listed above, Scheer worked as librettist with Tobias Picker on An American Tragedy, which premiered at the Metropolitan Opera, and on Therese Raquin, which was produced by Dallas Opera. With the composer Steven Stucky, Scheer wrote the oratorio August 4, 1964, for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, which was nominated for a Grammy for Best Classical Composition. He collaborated with Joby Talbot on the opera Everest, based on the doomed 1996 Everest expedition, and with Jennifer Higdon on an operatic adaptation of Cold Mountain, which premiered at Santa Fe Opera. It subsequently won the International Opera award for Best World Premiere and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Classical Composition. The distinguished documentary filmmaker, Ken Burns, prominently featured Scheer’s song “American Anthem” (as sung by Norah Jones) in his Emmy Award-winning World War II documentary for PBS entitled The War.
Press Contact: Beth Stewart
Verismo Communications
Tel: 618.444.3183 | Email: beth@verismopr.com
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