FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE PRESS CONTACTS September 9, 2019 Aleba Gartner, 212/206-1450 Tickets & Information: 212/854-7799 [email protected] www.millertheatre.com Lauren Bailey Cognetti, 212/854-1633 [email protected]

Miller Theatre at Columbia University School of the Arts

presents the world premiere of an intimate new chamber : Desire

MUSIC BY HANNAH LASH LIBRETTO BY HANNAH LASH, with CORI ELLISON

Commissioned by Miller Theatre at Columbia University © 2018 Schott Helicon Music Corporation

DESIRE showcases Hannah Lash's lush sonic landscape, written for the adventurous JACK Quartet and three singers: Kirsten Sollek, Daniel Moody, Christopher Dylan Herbert

Wednesday, October 16, 2019, 8:00 p.m. Thursday, October 17, 2019, 8:00 p.m.

Miller Theatre (2960 Broadway at 116th Street, New York, NY)

Tickets: starting at $35; Students with valid ID: starting at $7 View the digital press kit for opera synopsis, bios, and photos.

From Miller Theatre Executive Director Melissa Smey: “Hannah Lash is an incredibly gifted composer, musician, and educator. I have known and admired her music for many years, even before we first worked together on a 2016 Composer Portrait at Miller Theatre. Hannah has a unique and engaging mastery of setting a text to music, creating dramatic and engaging vocal works. I am thrilled to have commissioned her to create this , and eager to share it with audiences at its world premiere here in October.”

Desire - Rendering of Opening Scene Scenic Design by Kristen Robinson Photo of Hannah Lash by Kyle Dorosz for Miller Theatre.

Wednesday, October 16, 8:00 p.m. Thursday, October 17, 8:00 p.m. Miller Theatre (2960 Broadway at 116th Street) Desire Music by Hannah Lash Libretto by Hannah Lash, with Cori Ellison Commissioned by Miller Theatre at Columbia University © 2018 Schott Helicon Music Corporation

A flowering garden sets the scene for the world premiere of award-winning composer Hannah Lash’s newest chamber opera. Written for a cast of three singers and string quartet, Desire grapples with the human, personal struggle of trusting oneself in the midst of doubt.

The score paints a lush sonic landscape, performed by the brilliant JACK Quartet (who will be on stage and costumed, and are the heartbeat of the opera), and transports audiences to this metaphoric garden of creativity. Hannah Lash and JACK have been collaborators for many years, most recently on the album "Filigree: The Music of Hannah Lash” (July 2019).

Desire continues a long tradition of chamber opera at Columbia University, and follows the much-hailed NY premiere of Proving Up by Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek last year. It marks the second production of Miller Theatre's Chamber Opera Commissioning Initiative.

CREATIVE TEAM: Hannah Lash, composer & librettist Cori Ellison, librettist Rachel Dickstein, director Daniela Candillari, music director Kristen Robinson, scenic designer Kate Fry, costume designer Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew, lighting designer

CAST: Kirsten Sollek, Woman Daniel Moody, Man 1 Christopher Dylan Herbert, Man 2

JACK Quartet

View the opera synopsis, biographies, and photos here.

Hannah Lash hannahlash.com Hailed by The New York Times as “striking and resourceful…handsomely brooding,” Hannah Lash’s music has been performed worldwide with commissions from The Fromm Foundation, The Naumburg Foundation, The Boston Symphony Chamber Players, Alabama Symphony , Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, Orchestra of the Swan, Talujon Percussion, Miller Theatre at Columbia University, among many others. Lash has received numerous honors and prizes, including a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a fellowship from Yaddo Artist Colony, the Naumburg Prize, the Barnard Rogers Prize, and the Bernard and Rose Sernoffsky Prize in Composition. Recent world premieres include Music for Nine, Ringing for harps, keyboards, and percussion, performed at the Music Academy of the West (2018), and Concerto No. 1 “In Pursuit of Flying” for piano and orchestra, performed by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (2018). Other world premieres include Beowolf, a chamber opera in two acts commissioned by Guerilla Opera (2016), Music for Eight Lungs, commissioned by Miller Theatre at Columbia University for Loadbang (2016), Chaconnes, for string orchestra, commissioned by Interlochen Center for the Arts (2016), and Give Me Your Songs, for solo piano, commissioned and performed by Nadia Shpachenko (2016). Lash obtained her Ph.D. in composition from Harvard University in 2010 and currently serves on the composition faculty at Yale University School of Music.

Cori Ellison coriellison.com

A leading creative figure in the opera world, Cori Ellison is staff Dramaturg at Santa Fe Opera, and has previously served in that role at Glyndebourne Festival Opera and . She also teaches dramaturgy for American Lyric Theater’s Composer Librettist Development Program and was the first dramaturg invited to participate in the Yale Institute for Music Theatre. Ellison has been a sought-after developmental dramaturg to numerous composers, librettists, and commissioners, including Glyndebourne, Canadian Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Arizona Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, and Beth Morrison Projects. She has served as production dramaturg for projects including L’incoronazione di Poppea, Cincinnati Opera; Orphic Moments, Salzburg Landestheater, National Sawdust, and Master Voices; Aci, Galatea, e Polifemo, National Sawdust; Ring cycle, Washington National Opera; The Nose, Opera Boston; and Offenbach!!!, Bard Summerscape. Her English-singing translations include Hansel and Gretel, New York City Opera; La vestale, English National Opera; and Shostakovich’s Cherry Tree Towers, Bard Summerscape. She creates supertitles for opera companies across the English-speaking world, and helped launch Met Titles, the Met’s simultaneous translation system. Ellison is a member of the Vocal Arts Faculty at The Juilliard School and Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute. Miller Theatre's Chamber Opera Commissioning Initiative

Desire is the second production of Miller Theatre's Chamber Opera Commissioning Initiative, which will contribute meaningfully to the American opera landscape, provide composers with an opportunity to create significant new work, and increase audience engagement with contemporary opera. The inaugural production was the NY premiere of Proving Up by Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek in 2018. This initiative builds upon the success of Miller Theatre’s past acclaimed productions, including the New York stage premiere of Elliott Carter’s What Next? and the U.S. premieres of Olga Neuwirth’s Lost Highway and Iannis Xenakis’s Oresteia. As part of its famed Opera Workshop in the 1940s, Columbia presented many important new opera works and rediscoveries, most notably the world premieres of Britten and Auden’s Paul Bunyan, and Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein’s The Mother of Us All. Miller Theatre is proud to celebrate its rededication to this pioneering legacy.

What the press said about Miller’s inaugural commissioned opera last season:

"Columbia University’s Miller Theatre is a small space, intimate, and wider than it is deep, but last night, waiting for the New York City premiere of Missy Mazzoli’s Proving Up, the eager and expectant energy of the audience could have filled a much larger house." — Parterre

"extraordinary production" — Broadway World

"Proving Up opened at the Miller Theatre to an audience brimming with composers, singers, and directors in the contemporary NYC opera scene." — Feast of Music

Miller Theatre millertheatre.com

Miller Theatre at Columbia University is the leading presenter of new music in New York City and one of the most vital forces nationwide for innovative programming. In partnership with Columbia University School of the Arts, Miller is dedicated to producing and presenting unique events, with a focus on contemporary and early music, jazz, opera, and multimedia performances. Founded in 1988, Miller Theatre has helped launch the careers of myriad composers and ensembles over the years, serving as an incubator for emerging artists and a champion of those not yet well known in the United States. A four- time recipient of the ASCAP/ America Award for Adventurous Programming, Miller Theatre continues to meet the high expectations set forth by its founders—to present innovative programs, support the development of new work, and connect creative artists with adventurous audiences.

Miller Theatre 's 2019-20 Season is supported by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Major support for Desire is provided by Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts.

Additional support provided by the Howard Gilman Foundation.

Columbia University’s Miller Theatre is located north of the Main Campus Gate at 116th St. & Broadway on the ground floor of Dodge Hall.

Directions and information are available online at millertheatre.com or via the Miller Theatre Box Office, at 212/854-7799.

For photos, please contact Lauren Bailey Cognetti, 212/854-1633; [email protected].

For further information, press tickets, photos, and to arrange interviews, please contact Aleba & Co. at 212/206-1450 or [email protected].

Copyright © 2019 Aleba & Co., All rights reserved.

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