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THE NEXT GENERATION |
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Signature Theatre is proud to announce the commencement of the American Musical Voices Project: The Next Generation. In 2007, The Shen Family Foundation donated one million dollars to fund the American Musical Voices Project, which supports emerging composers in the creation of new work for musical theater. The first installment of this project of their gift was seen in 2009 with Michael John LaChiusa's Giant. As a continuation of their commitment to the development of new musical theater, the Shen Family Foundation has generously awarded Signature a $300,000 grant in order to fund American Musical Voices Project: The Next Generation. Five emerging composers, Matt Conner, Peter Foley Adam Gwon, Gabriel Kahane, and Marisa Michelson were the initial recipients of grants to develop full-length musicals under the guidance of Artistic Director Eric Schaeffer. In addition to the five initial composer grants, The Shen Family Foundation awarded two additional composer grants in summer 2010 to Chris Miller and Scott Davenport Richards. Together, these seven budding composers make up the American Musical Voices Project: The Next Generation. The Next Generation Composers Grant Recipients
Matt Conner has been performing, composing, teaching, and music directing in the Washington, DC metropolitan area for the last eleven years. Mr. Conner's world premiere musical, Nevermore, was produced at Signature Theatre in 2006 (directed by Eric Schaeffer with orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick). He recently wrote the book/lyrics/music to A Carol Christmas for the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington DC, produced December 2007, as well as a new commissioned work for Signature Theatre entitled Crossing, which had it's first reading in October 2007. Among Mr. Conner's stage credits are: Aurelio/Ensemble in Kiss of the Spider Woman, Scotty in Merrily We Roll Along, Toby in Witches of Eastwick, Steward in Into the Woods, John Hinckley in Assassins, Tamate in Pacific Overtures (all for Signature Theatre); Riff in West Side Story (Olney Theatre Center); and The Page of Herodias in Oscar Wilde's Salome (Synetic Theatre). Mr. Conner received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Music Theatre from Shenandoah Conservatory of Music and has Music Directed numerous shows including Brigadoon, Grease, Crazy for You, Shenandoah,and his original score, A Christmas Carol. Mr. Conner is currently writing Senior Moments/Silver, a Signature Theatre commissioned musical still in the pre-workshop phase, and Partial Eclispe, a world premier song cycle to be produced at Signature Theatre in June 2009. Mr. Conner is also working on a children's show called The King of Pizza, about diversity and working together, which will be produced in the fall of 2008. Mr. Conner is a proud voice on the Grammy Award®-winning recording of Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, a teaching artist with Creative Cauldron, Inc., and a member of the Actors Equity Association. For more information on Matt Conner, visit www.mattconner.org.
Peter Foley wrote music and lyrics for The Hidden Sky, which earned him an NEA grant, the Richard Rodgers Award (from the American Academy of Arts and Letters), the Stephen Sondheim Award (from the American Music Theater Festival), and a Jonathan Larson Foundation grant. The Hidden Sky premiered at the Prince Music Theater in Philadelphia, where it received a Barrymore Awards nomination for Outstanding Original Score; it was subsequently produced at the Spirit of Broadway Theater in Norwich, Connecticut, earning a Spirit Award for Best Original Score. Concert versions have been performed at Ars Nova and Joe's Pub in NYC. His other stage works include The Bear (Golden Fleece, Triangle Theater Co., Opera Unlimited), music for “To Sing” in Songs From An Unmade Bed (New York Theatre Workshop) and scores for several plays, including Newton's Universe (St. Ann's Warehouse), and Henry V (New Jersey Shakespeare Festival). His songs have been performed at Lincoln Center's American Songbook, Town Hall, Symphony Space, and LaMaMa, among other venues. In addition to a new work for Signature Theatre, Foley's upcoming theater projects include an untitled collaboration with playwright Ellen McLaughlin and director Michael Greif, an original musical comedy, Bloom, and a new production of The Hidden Sky at Prospect Theater Company in NYC. Foley served as musical director/keyboardist for the premieres of Rinde Eckert's Highway Ulysses (American Repertory Theater, dir. Robert Woodruff), Kenneth Vega's Heartfield (Baltimore Theater Project), and for several concerts by actor/singer-songwriter Manoel Felciano. He has also composed scores and themes for numerous television documentaries, including “Listening To America with Bill Moyers” and the Emmy-nominated PBS series, "Art:21." He has received fellowships and residencies from the MacDowell and Millay colonies, the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's National Music Theater Conference, and the Sundance Playwrights Retreat at Ucross. A member of ASCAP, alumnus of the BMI and New Dramatists workshops and resident artist in the American Lyric Theater's Composer/Librettist lab, he lives outside New York City with his wife, writer/director Kate Chisholm, and their daughter. For more information on Peter Foley visit hellagoodmusic.com.
Adam Gwon is a composer and lyricist recently named one of "50 to Watch" by The Dramatist magazine. His latest musical Ordinary Days will receive its world premiere at Pennsylvania Centre Stage in summer 2008, and its UK premiere at the Finborough Theatre in London in fall 2008. His other musicals include the upcoming Bernice Bobs Her Hair with librettist Julia Jordan and director Joe Calarco, Ethan Frome with bookwriter Michael Ruby, and Lulu. His work has been seen at Primary Stages, the York Theatre, New Dramatists, NYMF, NAMT, American Music Theatre Project, the ASCAP/Disney Musical Theatre Workshop, HERE, the Flea Theater, Tribeca Performing Arts Center, and many others. He has scored more than 25 productions across the country, and also writes for film and advertising. Adam is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, was a 2006-07 musical theater fellow at the Dramatists Guild, and is currently a teaching artist with Roundabout Theatre Company, where he helps 8th graders write musicals about paintings, presidents, and pajamas. Visit www.adamgwon.com.
Composer/performer Gabriel Kahane defies classification through his sonically challenging, emotionally resonant, and deeply accessible work. Kahane's most well-known work is his Craigslistlieder, an eight movement song cycle which comprises settings of anonymous classified ads from craigslist.org. In addition to its many performances throughout the US by the composer, Craigslistlieder was heard in excerpt at Carnegie Hall this season, in a recital by critically-acclaimed baritone Thomas Meglioranza. The summer of 2008 will witness the premiere of Kahane's For The Union Dead, a new song cycle on poems by Robert Lowell for small ensemble, at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland. Among his varied credits as a performer, Gabriel has appeared in recital with Grammy winning bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff throughout Europe, toured the Schumann Piano Quintet with the Mark Morris Dance Group, and accompanied violinist Hilary Hahn in the slow movement of the Sibelius Violin Concerto in a dirty bar. He has shared the stage with indie-rock luminaries My Brightest Diamond and Luke Temple, and has recorded with Sufjan Stevens and former Nickel Creek front-man Chris Thile. Kahane's sprawling self-titled debut LP, to be released in October 2008, features twenty-odd musicians while deftly marrying dense harmony and counterpoint to tasty melodic hooks. Much in demand as a composer of chamber music, Gabriel is currently completing solo piano commissions for pianists Natasha Paremski as well as for his father, Jeffrey Kahane. An evening-length work exploring his family's genealogy and journey from Germany to the United States will premiere in the fall of 2009. An avid theater artist, Kahane has collaborated extensively with the Obie-winning New York City-based downtown theater company Les Frères Corbusier, serving as musical director for a number of their productions including Hell House, A Very Merry Unauthorized Scientology Pageant, and the Los Angeles production of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. Visit www.gabrielkahane.com for more information.
Marisa Michelson's work is inspired by the limitless possibilities singing offers to express the authenticity of the human experience. Still Life With Toe Shoes, her original musical written with Joshua H. Cohen, had its world premiere last summer at Deerfield Academy. Michelson has been commissioned by NYC'S Prospect Theatre Company, first to write a short piece based on Rene Magritte's painting, The Lovers, and in 2008, as composer and co-lyricist with playwright Rinne Groff, for the “Hey Baby” storyline in The Dome. Michelson's full-length musical, Hotel Sarajevo, which she co-conceived with Stephanie Johnstone and for which she wrote book, music and lyrics, has received readings at CAP 21/NYU and Smith College. She has collaborated with playwright Jason Grote (also for The Dome), and with Nautilus Theatre Company in Minnesota. Michelson was an American Musical Voices Honoree in 2008, and the winner of the St. Botolph Award for composition in 2006. She participated in the New Dramatist Composer-Librettist Studio, won a fellowship to study Indian Hindustani Singing in 2007, and is currently in Vienna studying singing and teaching with the Libero Canto School. She graduated with a B.F.A in Musical Theater from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, participated in the Young Artist's Vocal Program at Tanglewood, and studied composition with Adam Guettel. Michelson currently lives in NYC where she teaches singing and piano to children and adults both privately and through Soyulla artists. www.MarisaMichelson.com.
Chris Miller studied piano and voice at Elon University and Musical Theater Writing at New York University. With Nathan Tysen, he wrote the musical The Burnt Part Boys(Mariana Elder, book), which had an extended, sold out run at Barrington Stage Company in the summer of 2006. The Burnt Part Boys had a lab production at the Vineyard Theatre in May 2009), a production at New York Stage & Film (summer 2009), and an upcoming full co-production at Playwrights Horizons (spring 2010). Their musical The Mysteries of Harris Burdick,based on the book by Chris Van Allsburg (Joe Calarco, book), has had readings at Lincoln Center Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, Mercury Musical Developments in London, a workshop with TheatreMasters in Aspen, Colorado, and a critically acclaimed full production at Barrington Stage Company in the summer of 2008. Miller is a contributing composer (Mark Campbell, lyrics) to the song cycle Songs From an Unmade Bed produced at the New York Theatre Workshop in the spring of 2005 (cast album on Sh-K-Boom Records). His string quartet Moment of Weakness premiered at Symphony Space in May 2007. He recently wrote incidental music for the Two River Theatre Co.'s production of Mary's Wedding,directed by Daniel Goldstein. His song cycle with Tysen, Fugitive Songs, premiered off-Broadway in March 2008 at the 45th Street Theatre, and was subsequently nominated for a Drama Desk Award (Outstanding Revue). Currently he is collaborating with Tysen on a commission for Lincoln Center Theatre, a Playwrights Horizons/TheatreWorks Palo Alto co-commission with playwright Craig Wright (creator and executive producer of ABC's Dirty Sexy Money, as well as writer/producer of Lost, and Six Feet Under), a musical of Tuck Everlasting for Broadway Across America/Barry Brown, and an original musical. Miller's awards include the 2003 Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation Grant, the 2003 Frederick Lowe Foundation Grant, the 2004 Daryl Roth Creative Spirit Award, the 2006 Richard Rodgers Award, the 2007 Kitty Carlisle Hart Musical Theatre Award from the Vineyard Theatre, and the ASCAP PLUS Awards 2005-08. In 2007 the Dramatists Guild Magazine's (The Dramatist, July/August issue) named him one of the “50 To Watch.”
Working in many capacities at the intersection of music and drama, Scott Davenport Richards often tries to bridge disparate genres and forms. Last season, Charlie Crosses the Nation an opera in a Jazz idiom (music, libretto, orchestrations) was performed by the New York City Opera as part of the VOX festival of new opera. A Thousand Words Come to Mind, written with playwright Michele Lowe was commissioned by Paulette Haupt and opened last May at The Zipper Theatre and starred Tony® nominee Barbara Walsh. A Star Across the Ocean, a work for four voices and symphony orchestra, was premiered by the Montclair State University Symphony and featured Tony Award-winner Chuck Cooper. Current projects include a musical adaptation of the classic Jean Shepherd film A Christmas Story, with a book by Joe Robinette, which is scheduled to open at Kansas City Rep this November. The musical will be directed by Artistic Director and produced by Eric Rosen in partnership with Gerald Goehring and Michael Jenkins. Dance of the Holy Ghosts, a play with music by Marcus Gardley, premiered in 2006 at the Yale Repertory Theatre. Richard's other musical theater works include music for Coyote Goes Salmon Fishing (with Deborah Brevoort), directed by Molly Smith at Perseverance Theatre and produced by Stuart Ostrow in Houston; and Sanctuary D.C., a rap musical about the homeless in Washington (Helen Hayes Award nomination). His works for children include a number of commissions from Theatreworks U.S.A.: Corduroy (music, lyrics, orchestrations), Sundiata! The Lion King of Mali (music, lyrics, orchestrations), Island of the Blue Dolphins (orchestrations) and Junie B. Jones (orchestrations). Richard's play-scores have been heard at resident theaters around the country including The Public, The Old Globe, The Alliance, and Madison Repertory Theatre. Highlights include the world premiere of Lee Blessing's Cobb,featuring Oscar winner Chris Cooper and Delroy Lindo at The Yale Repertory, and the U.S. premiere of Nikos Kazantzakis's Christopher Columbus at the New Federal Theater. As an actor, Richards originated the role of Sylvester in the original Broadway production of August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. Frank Rich's review of that production was recently included in Ben Brantley's compilation of The New York Times reviews of 25 productions which defined the 20th century. Mr. Richards also assisted his father, Lloyd Richards, in the origination of three other Wilson works. Richards is Assistant Professor of Musical Theatre/Composition at Montclair State University's Cali School of Music and has been a member of the faculty at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program since 1997. From 1995-2005, he was a teaching artist with Lincoln Center Institute, where he also authored publications for the Heckscher Foundation Research Center on such various subjects as The Blues, Margaret Leng Tan (The Art of the Toy Piano), and the tangos of Astor Piazzolla. Richards earned a B.A. from Yale University and M.F.A. from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program. He is a recipient of the Jonathan Larson and the Frederick Loewe awards.
American Musical Voices Project: The Next Generation Partner The Shen Family Foundation is committed to supporting and encouraging excellence, originality, and high aspiration in musical theater music-writing through its Musical Theater Composers Project. Inspired by the extraordinary, innovative musical theater works of Stephen Sondheim, the Foundation has engaged with non-profit theater organizations to help fund more than 40 projects since 2002 involving the creation, development, production, and cast recordings of works by Mr. Sondheim, and the next generation of innovative musical theater composers including Ricky Ian Gordon, Adam Guettel, Michael John LaChiusa, and Joseph Thalken. Productions for which the Foundation has provided or committed major funding include: the Kennedy Center's Sondheim Celebration (2002); Stephen Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along Reunion Concert (Musical Theatre Works, 2002), Assassins (Roundabout Theatre, 2004), The Frogs (Lincoln Center Theater, 2004), Pacific Overtures (Roundabout, 2004), Follies (Encores!, 2007), Merrily We Roll Along (Signature Theatre, 2007), Sunday in the Park with George (Roundabout, 2008), Road Show (The Public Theater, 2008), A Little Night Music (staged concert, Roundabout, 2009); Symphony Space's Wall to Wall Sondheim (2005); Ricky Ian Gordon's My Life with Albertine (Playwrights Horizons,2003), Orpheus and Euridice (Lincoln Center, 2005), The Grapes of Wrath (Minnesota Opera, 2007, and Utah Symphony & Opera, 2007), and Sycamore Trees (Signature Theatre commission, 2010); Adam Guettel's The Light in the Piazza (Lincoln Center Theater, 2005 and Weston Playhouse, 2008) and new commission (Signature Theatre, 2012); Michael John LaChiusa's R Shomon (Williamstown Theatre Festival, 2004), The Highest Yellow (Signature Theatre, 2004), See What I Wanna See (Public Theater, 2005), Bernarda Alba (Lincoln Center Theater, 2006), Send (who are you? I love you) (Houston Grand Opera,2006), Hotel C'Est L'Amour (Blank Theatre Company, 2006), Little Fish (Blank Theatre, 2007), Giant (Signature Theatre commission, 2009), See What I Wanna See (Blank Theatre, 2010), Hello Again (Transport Group, 2010), and Queen of the Mist (Transport Group commission, 2011); Joseph Thalken's Was (Human Race Theater, 2004, and Northwestern University,2005), and Harold and Maude (Paper Mill Playhouse, 2005, TheatreWorks, 2005, and Human Race Theater, 2007), and new commission (Signature Theatre, 2011). TheFoundation has also provided separate major funding for the cast recordings of StephenSondheim's Pacific Overtures (2005) and Road Show (2009); Ricky Ian Gordon's Only Heaven (2002), My Life with Albertine (2003), Dream True (2006), Orpheus and Euridice (2006), and The Grapes of Wrath (2008); Michael JohnLaChiusa's See What I Wanna See (2006), Bernarda Alba (2006), and Little Fish (2008). Other productions funded by the Foundation include Meet John Doe (Andrew Gerle/Eddie Sugarman, Ford's Theatre, 2007) and Take Flight (David Shire/Richard Maltby, Menier Chocolate Factory, 2007, and McCarter Theatre, 2010). For information about The Shen Family Foundation visit www.shenfamilyfoundation.org. Please visit The Shen Family Foundation for more information about their generous grant and to learn more about the American Musical Voices Project.
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