Blog

Welcome to my new site! I know there haven't been many updated blogs lately, but the website has been in a redesign for a while! (Looks great, huh?) So, we've had a lot going on in the last few months. There was the great concert with the New Amsterdam Symphony with Cara Kizer playing the Strauss first horn concerto, and then the Opera Vista Festival.

So, Opera Vista started with a bunch of us having a beer at the Gingerman in Houston. We sat there thinking about the fact that there really isn't a "Great American Opera Composer" yet. You think of Mozart, Bizet, Verdi, Wagner, etc., but really there isn't one composer that we could say is truly "America's Great American Composer." Then, we thought about the operas being written these days and realized that in order for more people to write new opera, we should find ways for people to get their operas out in front of audiences! And Opera Vista was born.

It has been a long process of building Opera Vista to the point where we could get our first festival up and running. I'm not sure that I can explain how it felt to actually get the festival off the ground. Then to see the review in the Houston Press! http://www.houstonpress.com/2007-06-28/culture/opera-vista/

I have to admit that it was a lot of much needed validation for our team. Everyone who was involved with Opera Vista did an incredible job. I don't think most people realize the magnitude of starting an opera company. (I can say with all honestly - WE didn't realize the amount of work or the seemingly billion things that need tending in getting a festival up and running.) We were very thankful to have the singers and instrumentalists donating their time to get us off the ground.

So, now where are we going with Vista? Well, the nice thing is that we have this great collaboration coming up with the Museum of Fine Arts, Bayou Bend. It's an incredibly beautiful setting for opera. We'll be performing outside on the patio of the Bayou Bend mansion, and the orchestra and singers will be amplified. Granted, I'm not a huge fan of amplifying an opera, but the opportunity for us to do contemporary opera with an audience of 500 people was too great to pass up. (Ok, I know some of you will debate the "contemporariness" of Copland and Amy Beach, and I agree to a certain extent... Especially about the Amy Beach! The Copland, however, can still be considered fairly contemporary. Also, I think it's a great place to start. If things go well with bayou Bend, then the hope is that we'll perform there a few times a year. Hopefully, we can use that to move the audience forward into more contemporary opera.)

Check back often! Now that my site is officially done, I'll be keeping up with my blog much more often.