New Frontiers in Music:
Contemporary Opera and Musical Theatre

Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Philadelphia Center for Arts & Heritage
1608 Walnut Street, 18th Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19103

Featuring

Steven Osgood
Artistic Director, American Opera Projects
Diane Wondisford
Producing Director, Music-Theatre Group
Yuval Sharon
Vox Project Director, New York City Opera

Moderated by

Marc Scorca
President and CEO, OPERA America

Given the large scale and dizzying production expenses of musical theatre and opera, how do leading proponents of this idiom—particularly those committed to producing the music of living composers—realize their creative goals? On February 6th, 2008, PMP con­vened a symposium to explore contemporary work in a field whose productions require enormous resources and vision.

Marc Scorca, President and CEO of OperaAmerica, conducted one-on-one interviews with representatives from three New York-based organizations: Steven Osgood, Artistic Director of American Opera Projects; Diane Wondisford, Producing Director of the Music-Theatre Group; and Yuval Sharon, Vox Project Director of New York City Opera. Panelists shared excerpts of works they’ve champi­oned, discussed their artistic and curatorial philosophies, and described some of the challenges that they’ve faced in seeing them through.

Interviews were followed by a group discussion and audience-led Q+A period.

Marc A. Scorca joined OPERA America in 1990 as president and CEO. Since that time, the OP­ERA America membership has grown from 120 opera companies to nearly 2,500 organizations and individuals. A strong advocate of collaboration, Scorca has led several cross-disciplinary projects, including the Performing Arts Research Coalition, National Music Coalition, and the National Per­forming Arts Convention. Under his leadership, OPERA America has administered two landmark funding initiatives in support of the development of North American operas and opera audiences and launched a $20 million endowment effort in 2000 to create a permanent fund dedicated to sup­porting new works and audience development activities. Scorca has led strategic planning retreats for opera companies and other cultural institutions internationally, and has participated on panels for federal, state and local funding agencies, as well as for numerous private organizations. He also appears frequently in the media on a variety of cultural issues. Scorca attended Amherst College where he graduated with high honors in both history and music and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the American Arts Alliance, the Board of Overseers of the Curtis Institute of Music, and as a Commissioner on the US Delegation to UNESCO.

Diane Wondisford is producing director of the Music-Theatre Group (MTG) and this year will celebrate her 26th anniversary with the organization. During her tenure she has produced more than 80 new works, either on her own or with MTG’s founder, Lyn Austin. Highlights of this extraordinary body of work include Diedre Murray and Cornelius Eady’s Running Man, directed by Diane Paulus, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; Julie Taymor and Elliot Goldenthal’s Juan Darien, nominated for five Tonys including Best Musical; and Tan Dun and Paul Griffith’s Marco Polo, directed by Martha Clarke, and winner of the Grawemeyer Award. Upon Austin’s death in October 2000, Wondisford succeeded her as producing director and continued the MTG tradition of commissioning, develop­ing and producing unique works of music-theatre with writers Anne Carson, Robert Pinsky, Wendy Walters and Susan Wheeler; composers Derek Bermel, Douglas Cuomo, Tod Machover and Diedre Murray; and directors Robin Guarino, Diane Paulus and Sonoko Kawahara. Wondisford is a board member of A.R.T./New York and is the architect and co-director of the Summer Music Theatre Im­mersion Experience for the School of Drama at The New School.

Steven Osgood has proven himself comfortable in repertoire ranging from the Baroque through this century’s most challenging scores, and is quickly becoming a much sought after conductor across North America. Mr. Osgood is artistic director of American Opera Projects, and is in his second season as Assistant Conductor with the Metropolitan Opera. His conducting appearances include New York City Opera, Edmonton Opera, San Francisco Opera’s Merola Opera and Western Opera Theater, Ashlawn Opera, the Gulbenkian Festival, and the Wintergreen Festival. He has been a regular guest conductor with the Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, and Rice University. In the 2007/08 season Mr. Osgood will maintain an active schedule with American Opera Projects, leading workshops of Tarik O’Regan’s Heart of Darkness, Conrad Cummings’ The Golden Gate, and Séance on a Wet Afternoon by Stephen Schwartz. In December 2007, he conducted Lukas Foss’ Griffelkin at Manhattan School of Music. He will also return to the Metropolitan Opera as Assistant Conductor for productions of La Traviata, Phillip Glass’ Satyagraha, and Tan Dun’s The First Emperor. The 2008/09 season will take him to the Netherlands Opera where he will conduct a new two-act version of Tan Dun's Marco Polo.

Yuval Sharon’s work has been described as “an alluring mix of wit and pathos” (San Francisco Chronicle) and “having a keen eye to mythology in the modern world” (Theatermania New York). With experiments in the collision of text, music, movement, and visual imagery, Yuval strives to create unexpected performances that provoke interpretation. Yuval’s eclectic tastes have led him to direct a variety of projects such as a carnivalesque Shakespeare mash-up entitled Celebrate Good Times (Macbeth), a three-hour adaptation of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, a fusion of Odissi dance and pop songs based on the classic Indian text Gita Govinda, a collaborative riff on the themes of Schönberg’s expressionistic opera Erwartung, the West Coast premiere of William Finn’s musical A New Brain, and the American premiere of Falk Richter’s underground phenomenon God is a DJ in a production that Theatermania called one of the ten best performances in New York in 2004. He has worked with New York City Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Komische Oper Berlin, Berkeley Opera, the Asia Society of New York, Deitch Projects, New York Hip Hop Theater Festival, Collective: Unconscious, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Shotgun Players, and Prospect Theater Company. He is co-founder of the New York-based group Theater Faction. A passionate advocate for new music, Yuval is Project Director for New York City Opera’s VOX, an annual workshop of new American compositions performed at New York University’s Skirball Center. Yuval is also currently developing the new opera Crescent City with composer Anne LeBaron and librettist Philip Littell.