The Song & the Slogan
Tuesday, Nov. 10,
2009, Poets� Film Festival
La Llorona -- A New World
Opera
October 25, 2008, National Hispanic
Cultural Center,
Albuquerque, NM. Story and Libretto by Rudolfo Anaya
Synopsis
Stories of la Llorona, the Crying Woman, are so well known in the oral tradition of Latin America they have achieved mythic status. The basic plot is as follows: a young woman falls in love with a handsome suitor. The love affair produces children, but the father deceives the mother. Finding herself alone and deserted, in a moment of despair, the young mother drowns her children. When she realizes what she has done she runs by the water's edge crying for her children. The story of Cortes and Malinche lends itself to such a mythic story. Cortes, the Captain in the opera, uses the beautiful and intelligent Malinche as a translator in his war against the Aztecs. Once the Aztecs are conquered he decides to advance his career by marrying a princess from Spain. The treachery drives Malinche to murder her son before he can be murdered by the Princess. Realizing what she has done, Malinche becomes the Crying Woman, la Llorona of the New World. The story of La Llorona is not only part of the popular imagination, it is part of the collective unconscious, which means the plot or variations of it, occur in legend world wide. The story of Medea is most often cited as analogous to La Llorona's.
Rudolfo Anaya
Too Much Coffee Man Opera: The Refill
(complete two-act version)
April 4-20, 2008, Portland Center for the
Performing
Arts, Portland, OR.
Fanfare Overture: Red or Green?
commissioned by the New
Mexico Symphony Orchestra
to celebrate its 75th anniversary. Popejoy Hall, Albuquerque,
September 14-16, 2007
Too Much Coffee Man Opera was performed in concert for five performances at the Horton Grand Theatre (444 4th Ave, San Diego, CA) on July 27th and July 28, 2007. Three performances were free for attendees of Comic-Con 2007 while the remaining two performances were open to the public.
Too Much Coffee Man Opera
Premiere --
2006 Brunish Hall,
Portland Center for
the Performing Arts, September 22-30. Run was extended through
October 7, 2006. Based on the comic strip character by Shannon
Wheeler
Article: The
Opera (Arrant)
/ Article: Coffee fan tutte /
Review: Fun 'Coffee Man' brews up some laughs
Production
Photo 1 / Production
Photo
2
Designing a Virtual
Reality for a Landscape
that Never Was
A work for Bassoon and Orchestra recorded
by the
Kiev Philharmonic for inclusion in the CD series, Masterworks of
the New Era, released by ERMMedia (distributed by Naxos). Available
in October.
Jerry Hadley
NATIONAL BROADCAST OF
"THE SONG & THE
SLOGAN"
During the summer of 2004 "The Song
& the
Slogan" video was broadcast on the PBS network. October 18,
2003
EMMY AWARDED FOR BEST MUSIC
The Song & the Slogan, a setting of poetry by Carl Sandburg, which was subsequently made into a PBS video, has been awarded the Emmy for Best Music from the Mid-America Chapterof the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. The video was also nominated for in three other categories, Best Direction, Best Photography, and Best Editing.
The premiere of the PBS video The Song & the Slogan, featuring the composer's setting of poetry by Carl Sandburg performed and commissioned by Jerry Hadley, took place on January 27, 2002 in the Tryon Festival Theatre in the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts on the campus of the University of Illinois. The program was hosted by David Hartman, former host of ABC's Good Morning America. Tenor Jerry Hadley and the composer were in attendance.The film features the 33-minute work for tenor, piano, cello and small ensemble, The Song & the Slogan, which was premiered in 2000. It explores the prairie as a living entity, constantly changing yet unwilling to be tamed. Producer Tim Hartin melds lush prairie visuals, Sandburg's poetry and Crafts' music into a moving tribute to Carl Sandburg. Read more about the making of the video.
April 8, 2003, San Francisco State University A concert of excerpts from the new opera La Llorona, with a libretto and original story by acclaimed novelist Rudolfo Anaya.
Mezzo-soprano Deborah
Benedict singing the
roles of Malinche, Mother
Soprano Alissa Deeter
-- the Spanish
princess
Tenor William Gorton --
the
Captain
Baritone Jere Torkelson
-- Abuelo / the
Guard
Pianist Charles Worth.
ON-GOING PROJECTS
Commissions from Jerry Hadley:
From a Distant Mesa for tenor and orchestra. Texts by: Rudolfo Anaya, novelist; VB Price, poet and Albuquerque Tribune columnist; Adam Cornford, poet.[Piece about Vietnam] for tenor and orchestra. Text by poet, Adam Cornford.
Sappho
An opera in two acts. Libretto by Ben and Nancy Freedman from her novel, Sappho, the Tenth Muse published by St. Martin's Press, New York. This very racy story concerns the late years of the poet renowned throughout the ancient Greek world and recognized by no less than Plato as a poet worthy of the Muses themselves.
Prairie Mother Suite for cello and piano (written for Barbara Hedlund). Broadcast Premiere 2002 WILL-FM Radio "Second Sunday" two hour live Broadcast, Krannert Art Museum, Urbana, IL, Barbara Hedlund, Cellist with Eric Dalheim, piano. Recorded on CD.
Live performances
Tarbel Arts Center, Charleston, IL October 3, 2002, 3pm Allerton Park, Monticello, IL 40th Annual UI Conference, with Thomas Schleis, Piano.
May 10, 2002, 7pm Solo Recital Urbana Country Club with Thomas H. Schleis, Piano.
April 26, 2002, noon Springer Cultural Center "Bach's Lunch" Recital Series, Champaign, IL.
March 13, 20, 2002, 12:15PM "Brown Bag Recital Series", First Presbyterian Church of Springfield, (Abraham Lincoln's church), Springfield, Illinois.
Feb 2, 2002, 4:30PM Recital Prairie Village, Rantoul, IL.
October 13th, 2001 - World
Premiere
of Entrance to the City of Proud Fancy
The Northwest Symphony of Chicago under the baton of maestro Paul Vermel celebrates its 50th anniversary this season. The Orchestra commissioned Daniel Steven Crafts to write an orchestral work commemorating the occasion. DSC wrote "Entrance to the City of Proud Fancy." The work was performed at the opening concert of the 2001-2002 season. Program notes.
February 13th, 2001, San Francisco State University, Music Building Auditorium, 1pm. Soprano Deborah Benedict, and Baritone Jere Torkelson from the San Francisco Opera accompanied by pianist Inara Morgenstern sing a selection of new works by Daniel Steven Crafts including excerpts from The Pig Opera, and the song-cycle Who's Who.
November 14, 2000, The World Premiere of The Song and the Slogan. The Great Hall, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, 8PM featuring:
Jerry Hadley, tenor - three time Grammy Award Winner, star of the New York City Opera, Vienna State Opera, Metropolitan Opera, Milan's Teatro della Scala, London's Royal Opera at Covent Garden, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Deutsche Staatsoper, the Paris Opera Bastille, the San Francisco Opera, the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, and the Salzburg Festival... accompanied by Paul Vermel, Conductor, Eric Dalheim, Piano, Barbara Hedlund, Violoncello, James Scott, Flute, Alison Robuck, Oboe, Solomon Baer, Clarinet, Kazimierz Machala, French horn, Jordan Kaye, Banjo, & Ricardo Flores, Percussion.
David Hartman (former host of ABC's Good Morning America) was the Special Guest narrator/reader for the film and concert. To learn more about the Song and the Slogan read the program notes.