An exclusive one-night event
featuring the works of Jonathan Bailey Holland
November 7 @ 7:30 pm, 2019 at the Room&Board Boston Showroom
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Critics rave...
"[Durang's] outrageous scenarios and relentlessly savage humor are always entertaining [...] in opera such excesses are just what the genre calls for. It helps that Bailey Holland’s score perfectly suits Naomi’s unhinged characters; the music is a tug-of-war between tonally ambiguous figures repeating in manic alternation and Pucciniesque outbursts played for laughs."
The Boston Musical Intelligencer Review
The Experience
Tickets to this event are limited
Join us for a poignant and raucous evening of short operas by Boston's own Jonathan Bailey Holland, hailed by WBUR as one of "opera theater's most innovative composers." This one-night-only performance will include the wildly popular Naomi in the Living Room, along with Always and The Battle of Bull Run Always Makes Me Cry. In standard BOC fashion, you'll be close to the action at the chic and cozy Room&Board showroom, with food and drink kicking off the night.
WHEN
Thursday, November 7, 7:30pm
WHERE
Room&Board
375 Newbury Street, Boston 02115
A native of Flint, MI, composer Jonathan Bailey Holland’s works have been commissioned and performed by orchestras and chamber ensembles across America. Most recently, he served as the Composer-In-Residence of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra for the 2018-19 season—the first composer to serve that role with that orchestra.
Highlights of his 2019-20 season include a commission by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum inspired by John Singer Sargent’s dance-inspired painting, “El Jaleo.” He will be featured on the American Composers Orchestra season at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall where he will orchestrate two Charles Ives songs to be sung by mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton. The Aeolus Quartet and the Arx Duo premiere his latest work, Third Quartet, for string quartet and percussion duo. Boston Opera Collaborative will delve into an evening of Holland’s works; the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival performs His House is Not of This Land as part of the Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music; and his music will appear on the Juventas New Music Ensemble season.
Other notable highlights from recent seasons include the premiere of his work Ode by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, his fifth work for the orchestra, following the initial commission in 2003 of Halcyon Sun, written to celebrate the opening of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center; the release of Synchrony, a powerful classical music statement on Black Lives Matter on Radius Ensemble’s Fresh Paint CD; the commission of Equality for narrator and orchestra by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra featuring the poetry of Maya Angelou with narration by actor Regina Taylor and rapper/actor Common; and the premiere of Forged Sanctuaries by Curtis on Tour, commissioned to commemorate the centennial of National Park Service. His piece Clarity of Cold Air has been performed on tour this past season by Eighth Blackbird.
A winner of a Mass Cultural Council 2019 artist fellowship, Holland is also a recipient of a 2015 Fromm Foundation Commission at Harvard University. He has received honors from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, American Music Center, ASCAP, the Presser Foundation, and more. He has served as Composer-in-Residence for the Plymouth Music Series of Minnesota (currently Vocal Essence); Ritz Chamber Players; Detroit and South Bend Symphony Orchestras; and the Radius Ensemble. His music has been recorded by the Cincinnati Symphony; the University of Texas Trombone Choir; trumpeter Jack Sutte; and flutist Christopher Chaffee, among others.
His works have been performed by symphony orchestras across America, and he has been commissioned by the Atlanta, Baltimore, Cleveland, Dallas, and Detroit Symphony Orchestras, among others. Future collaborations and performances are scheduled by the Arx Duo, Buffalo Philharmonic, Concord Chorus, Chicago Modern Orchestra Project, and Eighth Blackbird, and more.
Holland earned a Ph.D. in Music from Harvard University and studied composition with Ned Rorem at the Curtis Institute of Music. He is Chair of Composition, Contemporary Music, and Core Studies at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and Faculty Co-Chair of the Music Composition program at Vermont College of Fine Arts.
The Cast
Praised for his "splendid baritone voice, rich and rounded," baritone Junhan Choi is an active opera singer. In the 2018-19 season, engagements included roles as Don Giovanni, Escamillo, Marcello, Tideo, Roggiero, Valdeburgo (cover) in Boston and New York. He was awarded the Gold Medal from Berliner International Music Competition, Extraordinary Prizes at the 54th Vinas International Voice Competition, and first place in Talents of the World International Voice Competition.
Lindsay Conrad is a soprano and arts administrator in the New England region. Performance highlights include Musetta (La Bohème), Alice Ford (Falstaff), Elettra (Idomeneo), Sophie Arnould (Divas: A Play with Opera Music), and Muffy (John J. King’s re-working of Der Vampyr). As an arts administrator and leader, Ms. Conrad currently works in Development at the Portland Symphony Orchestra.
Carley DeFranco has been commended for her “stunningly exquisite, silvery smooth voice” (Melrose Free Press) and “warm, supple soprano” (Boston Musical Intelligencer). Recent credits include the title role in Alcina (Opera del West), Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro (Greater Worcester Opera), Yvette in La Rondine: Remix, Clara in a staged, immersive presentation of Fraunenliebe und Leben and From the Diary of Virginia Woolf (BOC). Carley received her MM from Longy School of Music of Bard College.
Praised for his “masterful acting” and “fine singing,” tenor Ethan DePuy brings his unique dramatic style to works ranging from the Baroque era to now. His list of credits includes engagements with Chautauqua Opera, Charlottesville Opera, Opera Sacra, Arizona State Lyric Opera Theater, Odyssey Opera, Brevard Music Center, and WNYCO. A native of Rochester, NY, Ethan has appeared as soloist on several commercially released albums, including James Kallembach’s Most Sacred Body (Gothic).
Soprano, Carina DiGianfilippo, is excited to continue her work with Boston Opera Collaborative. This past year, Miss DiGianfilippo was a young artist with the Opera Company of Middlebury in Vermont, guest artist with the Xi’an Symphony Orchestra in China, and placed first in the Concorso Internazionale Rolando Nicolosi in Italy. Boston credits include Adele in MassOpera’s Die Fledermaus, Zerlina in Nempac Opera’s Don Giovanni, and Musetta in BOC’s La Bohème.
Soprano, Alyssa Hensel is a third year member with the Boston Collaborative Opera. Her recent performances include: solo appearance with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus (Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms), Assistant B (Womb with a View), April #2 (Symposium), Vitellia (La Clemenza di Tito), Eliza (Dark Sisters) and Louisa Berry (A Letter to Vanguard, new commission). For the 2018-2019 season, she was the soprano for the Cathedral of St. Paul’s Schola.
Praised for his “drama, heart, and shining tone,” Wes Hunter recently debuted his solo cabaret to a sold-out audience at Club Café Boston featuring musical theatre selections. A regular interpreter of standard and new repertoire, operatic credits include leading roles in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Rossini’s Le Comte Ory, and Handel’s Alcina, as well as performances with Beth Morrison Projects, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, International Contemporary Ensemble, Odyssey Opera, MassOpera, and BOC.
Rebecca joined BOC in 2017, singing Hannah After in As One. Other professional highlights include performing Orlofksy, Azucena and Ciesca at Opera San Jose, the title role in Carmen in productions in California and Massachusetts, Cherubino with Pocket Opera, Komponist with Lowell House Opera, and the mezzo solo in the Verdi Requiem with the Paul Madore Choral. She holds an MM from Manhattan School of Music and a BA from Brown University.
Hailed by The Boston Globe as a "breathtakingly solid" soprano,” the Cleveland Plain Dealer as "fearless," and the Boston Musical Intelligencer as having a "captivatingly expressive strength," Tamara Ryan's recent appearances include: Stephanie in Heggie's To Hell and Back; Madame de Tourvel in Susa's The Dangerous Liaisons; Almera in Muhly's Dark Sisters; Sonny in the initial workshop of White Snake Productions' Permadeath, and the title role in Miss Havisham's Wedding Night.
Directions
Public Transportation
Take the Green Line or the No. 1 bus to Hynes Convention Center.
Parking
The closest parking garage is the Hynes Auditorium Garage, at 50 Dalton Street. There are also metered spots around the area on Mass Ave and Newbury Street.