Opera Cabal

Sponsored Project: OPERA SHOP

at HCL rsvp *here*
8pm Sept 30, Oct 1
Free

Opera Cabal has invited video designer, producer, composer and all-around technical whiz Alexander Overington to work with virtuoso cellist and singer, Teddy Rankin-Parker. Overington and Rankin- Parker first established a reputation when they toured as the opening act for Grammy Award-winning ensemble, eighth blackbird. Recognizing their explosive potential, Opera Cabal commissioned the duo to spend the month of September working exclusively to design a new work that confronts the idea of opera itself. Opera stages a meeting of complementary but different art forms; Overington's hyper-digitization collides with Rankin-Parker's improvisatory daring in a work of truly operatic proportions.

http://operacabal.blogspot.com/

Opera Cabal Performing Arts Association NFP reshapes the way opera is conceived, defined and produced in the United States. Composed of an ever-changing collective of accomplished and adventurous young artists countrywide, Opera Cabal functions as performer, presenter and educator, advancing the opera of our time by developing innovative new works and pursuing groundbreaking strategies for audience engagement. In an era of changing audiences and rapidly shifting musical genres, Opera Cabal embraces interdisciplinary collaborators, new commissions, and intimate and unusual venues. The Cabal reaches into to neighboring visual, theatrical and technological communities to broaden the audience for and the definition of opera in a new century, reviving the integrity of an age-old art form with an infusion of new energy and eclectic design.

Inspired by years of collaborating with some of the most exciting young artists of our time, The Opera Shop channels much of what we as an ensemble have learned about musical creativity into a radical model for developing new opera. Beginning in September and continuing each fall thereafter, The Opera Shop will place two artists in partnership with a dramaturg for the period of one month. Instead of accepting traditional commissions, these trios will have the rare opportunity to work together in intense collaborative incubation residencies to produce evening-length works of new opera. The Opera Shop structure embraces the essential composer-performer collaboration and takes it to the next level, allowing collaborating artists the mental space for radical musical ideas to emerge in a spacious and comfortable residency environment, while creating an opportunity to mount ambitious multimedia productions efficiently.