Sonnet 60 (2020)

Sonnet 60 was written for Rhymes With Opera’s “1-minute Operas” project, which premiered in August 2020 in a Facebook streaming event. While audiences experienced the prerecorded piece, once the music began, they are invited to open another tab in their web browser to listen to the audio of a slightly different recording of the same work, creating a canon between the two recordings. The work highlights the passage of time with both Shakespeare’s sonnet and by recreating the slight latency that we experience in live internet events.

Written for the Rhymes With Opera "1-Minute Opera" project, August 2020. www.rhymeswithopera.org

Here’s what the score looks like:

Such Sweet Sorrow (2018)

George_Lam · Such Sweet Sorrow (2018)

Poem by Allison Joseph
Commissioned by American Opera Projects for the Chautauqua Opera Company
Part of the Composer-in-Residence program at the 2018 Chautauqua Opera

Team

Bass and Piano.

Preface

Such Sweet Sorrow (2018) is a song for soprano and piano, on a poem by Allison Joseph. This work was commissioned by American Opera Projects for the Chautauqua Opera Company as part of the 2018 Chautauqua Opera Composer-in-Residence program.

Heard

Such Sweet Sorrow received its world premiere on August 2, 2018 at the Chautauqua Institution, with Brett Bode (bass) and Miriam Charney (piano).

Photo by Sara Noble

Sissieretta Jones, Carnegie Hall, 1902: O Patria Mia (2018)

Poem by Tyehimba Jess, from Olio
Commissioned by American Opera Projects for the Chautauqua Opera Company
Part of the Composer-in-Residence program at the 2018 Chautauqua Opera

George_Lam · Sissieretta Jones, 1902: Carnegie Hall, "O Patria Mia" (2018)

Team

Soprano and Piano.

Preface

Sissieretta Jones, Carnegie Hall, 1902: O Patria Mia (2018) is a song for soprano and piano, on a poem by Tyehimba Jess. This work was commissioned by American Opera Projects for the Chautauqua Opera Company as part of the 2018 Chautauqua Opera Composer-in-Residence program.

Heard

• June 28, 2018: Chautauqua Institution, with Kayla White (soprano) and Emily Jarrell-Urbanek (piano); world premiere.

• February 18, 2019: Minetta Lane Theater, as part of the Olio Live Audible.com event, with Kayla White (soprano) and Jeremy Gill (piano).

• March 14, 2019: National Opera Center (video above) as part of the OPERA America Emerging Artist Recitals series, with Kayla White (soprano) and Jeremy Gill (piano).

• July 4, 2021: Calliope’s Call’s I, Too, Sing America concert series, as one of the winners of its 2021 Call for Scores competition; with MaKayla M. McDonald (soprano) and Julia Scott Carey (piano).

Photo by Sara Noble

The Love Song of Mary Flagler Cary (2012)

Rhymes With Opera in performance at Mary Flagler Cary Hall, The DiMenna Center for Classical Music (June, 2012)

Team

Two sopranos, baritone, two violas and piano

Preface

The Love Song of Mary Flagler Cary was written for Rhymes With Opera, for its 2012 mainstage production in New York and New Haven The New York venue was the Mary Flagler Cary Hall at the new DiMenna Center for Classical Music, and I wanted to write a piece that would be intimately connected to the namesake of the hall where it will be premiered. Mary Flagler Cary was heiress to the Henry Flagler’s Standard Oil fortune, and she established the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, which funded music, among many other disciplines. The Love Song of Mary Flagler Cary is a meditation on Mary’s life, the spirit of collecting, and the cycle of beginnings and endings for Henry, Mary, their estate, and the Charitable Trust, which winded up operations in 2009.

Special thanks to the Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies for allowing Rhymes With Opera to use he portrait of Mary Flagler Cary as a part of the performance of this work.

Heard

• June 9, 2012 Mary Flagler Cary Hall at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music (New York, NY)


• June 10, 2012 The Big Room (New Haven, CT)
  

The Person In The Room Wishes To Be Left Alone (2011)

Libretto by Benjamin Rogers
For Soprano, Saxophone and Tape
Commissioned by the Emerging Voices Project

Team

Soprano, Alto Saxophone, Fixed Media Playback (most likely a CD)

Preface

The Person In The Room Wishes To Be Left Alone is a set of miniatures for soprano, alto saxophone and tape, and takes as its subject both the real-life child prodigy author Barbara Follett and the character of Margot Tenenbaum in Wes Anderson’s film The Royal Tenenbaums, on a libretto by Benjamin Rogers.

The work was commissioned by and is dedicated to Elisabeth Halliday and Zach Herchen, as a part of the Emerging Voices project. The commission was funded by Ted Esborn.

Heard

• February 4, 2012, Enoch Pratt Free Library (Baltimore, MD), Elisabeth Halliday, soprano and Zach Herchen, saxophone.

• January 20, 2012, George Mason University (Fairfax, VA), Elisabeth Halliday, soprano and Zach Herchen, saxophone.

• September 25, 2011, Gershwin Hotel (New York, NY), Elisabeth Halliday, soprano and Zach Herchen, saxophone.

• September 18, 2011, Follen Church (Lexington, MA), Elisabeth Halliday, soprano and Zach Herchen, saxophone.

Fog Argument (2004)

Two Songs for Tenor and Piano
on the poem by Mark Doty
For Robert Maril

Team

Tenor and piano

Preface

Fog Argument (2004, Revised 2005) was commissioned by Robert Maril, and was premiered by Robert Maril at the Peabody Conservatory of Music on May 1, 2004.

The work uses the original poem by Mark Doty of the same name, published in the collection Atlantis, used by permission of the author.

Heard

• January 27, 2010 Tobenski-Algera Concert Series. Dennis Tobenski, tenor, Marc Peloquin, piano.

• September 16, 2005 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Robert Maril, tenor, Michael Trinastic, piano.

• May 3, 2004 Peabody Conservatory of Music. Robert Maril, tenor, Robert Muckenfuss, piano.