Donation protected
Help support indie opera and new music in NYC!
We are a group of artists expanding what it means to make opera and music- theatre from the ground up - DIY and self-produced. Our goal is to make work that is more accessible and meaningful for contemporary audiences. In April, we will be performing a double bill of Poulenc’s transformative solo opera La Voix Humaine, accompanied by several intimate pieces by Brooklyn-based composer and pianist Felix Jarrar. The performance will be completely free of charge, with a suggested donation of $10 at the door. More about the pieces below:
La Voix Humaine:
A woman is trying to escape her emotionally abusive relationship, but keeps being drawn back through his manipulation over the phone. Featuring soprano Savannah Greene as “Elle” or the unnamed “She” with accompaniment by Felix Jarrar.
Songs by Felix Jarrar:
-Eclipse & Bobbing for Apples with text by Bea Goodwin
-Songs of a Bygone Time with text by Thomas Hardy
- Nocturne in Ulster County with text by Felix Jarrar
These songs contain themes of inward reflection, self-discovery, loss, and empowerment after trauma. They will be performed by one Mezzo-Soprano and one Baritone.
Both pieces will be performed semi-immersive and in the round, creating a more up-close and intimate experience for audience members.
What your money will be going towards:
As many artists and friends of artists know, finding and renting space is one of the most difficult parts of producing work in New York City. By donating, you will help us pay for space rental for both the performance venue and rehearsals, helping us ensure adequate rehearsal time at the lovely Alchemical Studios On West 14th Street in Manhattan.
Our goal is to obtain $2,000 by February 1, 2020, which will allow us enough time to put down the space rental deposit for the performance and technical rehearsals to take place in late April - all donations are appreciated and absolutely every amount helps!! All those who are generous enough to donate at least $10 will be recognized in our program on the night of the show, and be sent a recording of the performance.
Any amount received over $2,000 will be donated to the Urban Resource Institute of NYC, which provides invaluable client services to vulnerable populations in the city , including but not limited to domestic violence survivors, homeless citizens, and rescue animals. More about their organization here: https://urinyc.org
About the Artists:
Felix Jarrar (composer/pianist): Felix Jarrar is a composer and pianist whose list of accomplishments includes performances at venues such as Symphony Space, (le) poisson rouge, BAM's Fisher Hillman Studio, and Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall. His works have been performed internationally by members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Atlantic Music Festival Orchestra, and the duo Unassisted Fold. Last season, Jarrar workshopped his newly-commissioned ballet based on Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Red Shoes” for New York Deaf Theatre. He is a composer-in-residence for The Downtown Brooklyn Chamber Music Festival. Jarrar's fifth opera, Mother Goose, premieres at Dixon Place on November 21st, 2019.
LISTEN TO FELIX
Savannah Greene (actor/soprano): Savannah Greene is a soprano known for her "velvety", "powerful", and "beautifully emotive" voice. This winter, Savannah will cover the role of Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi with Regina Opera. Last season, she was the 2nd Pâtre in Amore Opera’s Dinorah, the Soprano Soloist in Brahms’ Requiem, Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang and Bach’s Gott der Herr ist Sonn und Schild with the Oratorio Society of New Jersey. In 2018, Savannah co-founded and debuted with the Opera-Jazz fusion trio, Blue Dynamic, prepared the role of Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte with Teatro Nuovo, and was a semi finalist in both Premier Opera International Vocal Competition and Art Song Preservation Society of New York. In the summer of 2017, she was the guest opera soloist at The Pageant of the Masters where she sang with full orchestra for 60 nights in a row in front of 2800 people. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she now resides in New York City where she specializes in experimental and boundary pushing art.
LISTEN TO SAVANNAH:
Desdemona’s “Willow Song” from Otello by Verdi
“I Want Magic” from A Streetcar Named Desire by Previn
Madeline Whitesell (director): Madeline Whitesell is a Brooklyn-based artist focused on the intersections of music and theatre. Her most recent project was directing a blackbox, movement-focused version of C.W. Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice. This year she also assistant directed This is The Ground with Opera on Tap- NYC, and Oedipus: Sex with Mum was Blinding at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Current projects include a visual album with Chicago musician Uuskhy, and a theatre/music lab with New York director and sound designer Drew Weinstein. Madeline recently moved to New York from Illinois, where she earned degrees in Theatre Studies and Voice Performance from the University of Illinois. There, she was recently seen in A Well at the Chicago Rhinoceros Theater.
SEE MADELINE
Jack Scaletta (designer): Jack Scaletta is a theatremaker and lighting designer based in Brooklyn, NY. Lighting Design credits: The Universe Will Not Save Me, Medea/Britney (Nuyorican Poets Cafe), The Most Oppressed of All (The Doxsee), there’s a shewolf (Dixon Place). Assistant Design Credits: An Iliad (Long Wharf Theatre) and Witness (Playwrights Realm). Jack recently debuted his original performance, The Universe Will Not Save Me, as part of the 2019 NYC Fringe Festival. Williams College, BA Theatre and Physics. Wondering and wandering.
SEE JACK
Chloe Golding (producer/stage manager): Chloe Golding is the Financial and Contract Manager of the small boutique producing firm THE OFFICE performing arts and film, based in New York City and living in Brooklyn. She graduated summa cum laude from Eastern Kentucky University in the summer of 2017 with a bachelor’s degree in Piano Performance and an emphasis in Music Industry and Business, and attended the Performing Arts Administration Masters program at NYU. Prior to becoming part of THE OFFICE team she was a development fellow at HERE Arts center, a freelance musician, and a music teacher (she continues the latter two). In her free time she likes to go to shows, eat brunch, and play a lot of music.
As a performer, she toured abroad for a week in Costa Rica in the summer of 2016 as a pianist, guitarist, and vocalist with the Pure Life Gospel Quartet. She also performed abroad during the summer of 2017 in Feltre, Italy at the Jazzit Festival with Eastern Kentucky Universities a cappella group EKo's. She held a joint and senior recital where she performed solo works by Scarlatti, Mussorgsky, Beethoven, Shostakovich, Chopin, Ravel, and Ginastera. She has performed locally at the Bushwick Community Darkroom, C’mon Everybody!, and Pine Box Rock Shop as a pianist and vocalist with the Waterlynx Trio.
We are a group of artists expanding what it means to make opera and music- theatre from the ground up - DIY and self-produced. Our goal is to make work that is more accessible and meaningful for contemporary audiences. In April, we will be performing a double bill of Poulenc’s transformative solo opera La Voix Humaine, accompanied by several intimate pieces by Brooklyn-based composer and pianist Felix Jarrar. The performance will be completely free of charge, with a suggested donation of $10 at the door. More about the pieces below:
La Voix Humaine:
A woman is trying to escape her emotionally abusive relationship, but keeps being drawn back through his manipulation over the phone. Featuring soprano Savannah Greene as “Elle” or the unnamed “She” with accompaniment by Felix Jarrar.
Songs by Felix Jarrar:
-Eclipse & Bobbing for Apples with text by Bea Goodwin
-Songs of a Bygone Time with text by Thomas Hardy
- Nocturne in Ulster County with text by Felix Jarrar
These songs contain themes of inward reflection, self-discovery, loss, and empowerment after trauma. They will be performed by one Mezzo-Soprano and one Baritone.
Both pieces will be performed semi-immersive and in the round, creating a more up-close and intimate experience for audience members.
What your money will be going towards:
As many artists and friends of artists know, finding and renting space is one of the most difficult parts of producing work in New York City. By donating, you will help us pay for space rental for both the performance venue and rehearsals, helping us ensure adequate rehearsal time at the lovely Alchemical Studios On West 14th Street in Manhattan.
Our goal is to obtain $2,000 by February 1, 2020, which will allow us enough time to put down the space rental deposit for the performance and technical rehearsals to take place in late April - all donations are appreciated and absolutely every amount helps!! All those who are generous enough to donate at least $10 will be recognized in our program on the night of the show, and be sent a recording of the performance.
Any amount received over $2,000 will be donated to the Urban Resource Institute of NYC, which provides invaluable client services to vulnerable populations in the city , including but not limited to domestic violence survivors, homeless citizens, and rescue animals. More about their organization here: https://urinyc.org
About the Artists:
Felix Jarrar (composer/pianist): Felix Jarrar is a composer and pianist whose list of accomplishments includes performances at venues such as Symphony Space, (le) poisson rouge, BAM's Fisher Hillman Studio, and Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall. His works have been performed internationally by members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Atlantic Music Festival Orchestra, and the duo Unassisted Fold. Last season, Jarrar workshopped his newly-commissioned ballet based on Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Red Shoes” for New York Deaf Theatre. He is a composer-in-residence for The Downtown Brooklyn Chamber Music Festival. Jarrar's fifth opera, Mother Goose, premieres at Dixon Place on November 21st, 2019.
LISTEN TO FELIX
Savannah Greene (actor/soprano): Savannah Greene is a soprano known for her "velvety", "powerful", and "beautifully emotive" voice. This winter, Savannah will cover the role of Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi with Regina Opera. Last season, she was the 2nd Pâtre in Amore Opera’s Dinorah, the Soprano Soloist in Brahms’ Requiem, Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang and Bach’s Gott der Herr ist Sonn und Schild with the Oratorio Society of New Jersey. In 2018, Savannah co-founded and debuted with the Opera-Jazz fusion trio, Blue Dynamic, prepared the role of Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte with Teatro Nuovo, and was a semi finalist in both Premier Opera International Vocal Competition and Art Song Preservation Society of New York. In the summer of 2017, she was the guest opera soloist at The Pageant of the Masters where she sang with full orchestra for 60 nights in a row in front of 2800 people. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she now resides in New York City where she specializes in experimental and boundary pushing art.
LISTEN TO SAVANNAH:
Desdemona’s “Willow Song” from Otello by Verdi
“I Want Magic” from A Streetcar Named Desire by Previn
Madeline Whitesell (director): Madeline Whitesell is a Brooklyn-based artist focused on the intersections of music and theatre. Her most recent project was directing a blackbox, movement-focused version of C.W. Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice. This year she also assistant directed This is The Ground with Opera on Tap- NYC, and Oedipus: Sex with Mum was Blinding at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Current projects include a visual album with Chicago musician Uuskhy, and a theatre/music lab with New York director and sound designer Drew Weinstein. Madeline recently moved to New York from Illinois, where she earned degrees in Theatre Studies and Voice Performance from the University of Illinois. There, she was recently seen in A Well at the Chicago Rhinoceros Theater.
SEE MADELINE
Jack Scaletta (designer): Jack Scaletta is a theatremaker and lighting designer based in Brooklyn, NY. Lighting Design credits: The Universe Will Not Save Me, Medea/Britney (Nuyorican Poets Cafe), The Most Oppressed of All (The Doxsee), there’s a shewolf (Dixon Place). Assistant Design Credits: An Iliad (Long Wharf Theatre) and Witness (Playwrights Realm). Jack recently debuted his original performance, The Universe Will Not Save Me, as part of the 2019 NYC Fringe Festival. Williams College, BA Theatre and Physics. Wondering and wandering.
SEE JACK
Chloe Golding (producer/stage manager): Chloe Golding is the Financial and Contract Manager of the small boutique producing firm THE OFFICE performing arts and film, based in New York City and living in Brooklyn. She graduated summa cum laude from Eastern Kentucky University in the summer of 2017 with a bachelor’s degree in Piano Performance and an emphasis in Music Industry and Business, and attended the Performing Arts Administration Masters program at NYU. Prior to becoming part of THE OFFICE team she was a development fellow at HERE Arts center, a freelance musician, and a music teacher (she continues the latter two). In her free time she likes to go to shows, eat brunch, and play a lot of music.
As a performer, she toured abroad for a week in Costa Rica in the summer of 2016 as a pianist, guitarist, and vocalist with the Pure Life Gospel Quartet. She also performed abroad during the summer of 2017 in Feltre, Italy at the Jazzit Festival with Eastern Kentucky Universities a cappella group EKo's. She held a joint and senior recital where she performed solo works by Scarlatti, Mussorgsky, Beethoven, Shostakovich, Chopin, Ravel, and Ginastera. She has performed locally at the Bushwick Community Darkroom, C’mon Everybody!, and Pine Box Rock Shop as a pianist and vocalist with the Waterlynx Trio.
Organizer
Madeline Whitesell
Organizer
Brooklyn, NY