Soldier Songs

His critically acclaimed operas Dog Days, JFK,and Vinkensport (librettos by Royce Vavrek) and Soldier Songs have been widely acclaimed, “prov[ing] beyond any doubt that opera has both a relevant present and a bright future” (New York Times). Recent works include The Conjured Life (Cabrillo Festival / Cristian Măcelaru), Ghostlight—ritual for six players (eighth blackbird / Kennedy Center), AGENCY (Kronos Quartet), and dress in magic amulets, dark, from My feet (The Crossing / ICE).

Mr. Little is currently composing a new opera with Royce Vavrek, commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera / Lincoln Center Theater new works program, and the music-theater work Artaud in the Black Lodge with poet Anne Waldman (Beth Morrison Projects). His music has been heard at LA Opera (Dog Days, 2015), the LA Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall, Park Avenue Armory, Holland Festival, the Bang On A Can Marathon, BAM Next Wave, Opéra de Montréal, and elsewhere. He co-founded the New Music Bake Sale, served as executive director of MATA, serves on the board of directors at Chamber Music America, and teaches composition at Mannes-The New School. From 2014 to 2017, he served as Composer-in-Residence with Opera Philadelphia and Music-Theatre Group. The founding artistic director of the ensemble Newspeak, his music can be heard on New Amsterdam, Innova, and VIA Records labels. David T. Little is published by Boosey & Hawkes.

DavidTLittle.com

Learn more at BillMorrisonFilm.com.

With over 60 principal roles to his credit, he is a highly sought-after leading baritone by major opera houses and orchestras worldwide, including the Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Covent Garden, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Salzburg Festival, Carnegie Hall, Théâtre du Châtelet, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Israeli Opera, New York City Opera, Bunkamura (Tokyo), Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, LA Phil, Staatsoper Hannover, Orchestra of St. Luke's, American Symphony Orchestra, and many others. He has recorded for Innova, GPR, and BMG records, with broadcast credits including BBC, Arte, NPR, Radio France, RAI, and Radio Netherlands.

A celebrated interpreter of contemporary music, he has created roles for some of today’s most important living composers, including Thomas Adès, Peter Eötvös, and David T. Little, while simultaneously garnering critical acclaim for his interpretations of classic works from the Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Modern eras, most notably Don Giovanni, Eugene Onegin, Figaro in The Barber of Seville, Billy Budd, Count Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro and Orff's Carmina Burana.

Also known for his work as a stage director, composer, and video designer, Mr. Moore co-founded two NYC-based arts collectives, GLMMR and Choreo Teatro, with whom he has created music, video, and performance works in venues including the 92nd St. Y, .NO Gallery, and The Cell. Most recently, his multimedia production of Schubert's Winterreise, with visuals by GLMMR, was enthusiastically received at venues throughout the U.S. including National Sawdust (NYC), Atlanta Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, and Anchorage Opera. Also with GLMMR and his artistic partner, the renowned stage/film designer Vita Tzykun, Mr. Moore directed and designed the world's largest-scale production of Michael Nyman's The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat for Indianapolis Opera, and designed sets, costumes and projections for a new production of David T. Little's Soldier Songs at Atlanta Opera and San Diego Opera. As a performance artist, he has collaborated with Holly Herndon in Blood Makes Noise at the Guggenheim Museum and Nick Hallett at NYC's Town Hall.

DavidAdamMoore.com

She is an opera and theater producer, singer, and voice teacher with bachelor and master of music degrees and a master of fine arts in theater management/producing from the Yale School of Drama, as well as many years of experience in the development of new opera and theater works. She first cultivated her extensive experience in arts administration at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute where she served as administrative director for four years. Beth served a founding tenure as the Producer for the Yale Institute for Music Theatre from 2009-2011, as well as Producer for New York City Opera’s VOX: Contemporary American Opera Lab from 2010-2011.

Beth Morrison Projects is the realization of Beth‘s vision, which stems from a deep commitment to nurturing composers and other artists and fostering the development of new opera and other new music-theater works. Established in 2006, Beth Morrison Projects (BMP) identifies and supports the work of emerging and established living composers and their multi-media collaborators through the commission, development, production and touring of their works, which take the form of contemporary music-theater, opera-theater, and multi-media concert works. BMP has established itself as a composers’ producer and The New York Times said, “The production of new [opera] works in the city still falls mostly to the tireless Beth Morrison and her Beth Morrison Projects…”

Learn more at BethMorrisonProjects.org.

In addition to his work as artistic director of Alarm Will Sound, he is the artistic director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic, principal conductor of the Dublin-based Crash Ensemble and has appeared as a guest conductor with the London Sinfonietta, the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Steve Reich Ensemble, Carnegie Hall's Ensemble ACJW, the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, the New World Symphony, and the Silk Road Project. He has also served as a visiting faculty conductor at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Mr. Pierson has collaborated with major composers and performers, including Yo Yo Ma, Steve Reich, Dawn Upshaw, Osvaldo Golijov, John Adams, Augusta Read Thomas, David Lang, Michael Gordon, La Monte Young, and choreographers Christopher Wheeldon, Akram Khan and Elliot Feld. Mr. Pierson has recorded for Nonesuch Records, Cantaloupe Music, Sony Classical, and Sweetspot DVD.

Her work has been seen in venues and festivals throughout the U.S. and internationally including National Sawdust, The Kitchen, EMPAC, Dixon Place, HERE Arts Center, PROTOTYPE Festival, The Crossing the Line Festival, the Holland Festival, The National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing, Fargo-Moorhead Opera, and the Richard B. Fisher Center at Bard College. In the 2018/19 season, her production of Kate Soper's Ipsa Dixit will be presented at the Miller Theater as part of their Composer Portrait series, she will be the director in residence at Harvard University where she will develop a new work, she will stage the NYC premiere of Huang Ruo's opera Bound with Fresh Squeezed Opera and her staging of David T. Little's Soldier Songs will be presented with Opera ATX, Austin Opera. The LA Opera Off Grand presentation of Soldier Songs at the Ford Theatres in 2018 represents her fourth time working with LA Opera, having previously assisted Robert Woodruff on David T. Little and Royce Vavrek's Dog Days (2015), Daniel Fish on Ted Hearne and Mark Doten's The Source (2016) and was associate director to Jay Scheib on Keeril Makan and Scheib's Persona (2017). She earned her MFA at Columbia University and has taught at Marymount Manhattan College, Colgate College, Bard College, LIU Post and NYU. She is the recipient of the Lotos Foundation's Emerging Artist Award in Arts and Sciences and a winner of the 2017 Robert L. B. Tobin Director/Designer grant.

(AshleyTata.com)

He cut his teeth (or ears) as an engineer on the New York City contemporary music scene (le Poisson Rouge, VIA, BMP, MATA). An avid musician since his youth, Garth was strongly influenced by his time as a student of avant garde percussion at UCSC under the tutelage of Willie Winant. Coupled with the music department’s emphasis on contemporary and experimental music, this set him on the path he is on today. He is technical director for National Sawdust. Recent credits include the sound design for “FLEXN” with Peter Sellars at the Park Avenue Armory, engineering Jeff Zeigler/Andy Akiho/Roger Bonair-Agard at the Prospect Park Bandshell for Celebrate Brooklyn and mixing Alarm Will Sound with Dance Heginbotham in Seoul, Korea. He has worked with Kronos Quartet, Philip Glass Ensemble, Terry and Gyan Riley, David T. Little, Steve Reich, Paul Simon, Atoms for Peace, Erykah Badu, the Brooklyn Philharmonic and many more. He was the sound engineer for Dog Days, presented by LA Opera at REDCAT in 2016. After that work's 2012 premiere as part of the Peak Performances series at Montclair State University, the New York Times wrote: “Unseen but felt: the sound engineering, by Garth MacAleavey, is aggressive, and at times bombastic, in ways that complement the work. Amplified voices grow strident at peaks. The opera’s ending comes awash in electric distortion.”