||| FROM LINDA SLONE for ORCAS CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL |||
On Thursday, May 27, at 5 p.m. Pacific Time, composer Jake Heggie joins Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival Founder and Artistic Director Aloysia Friedmann for an informative and entertaining livestream discussion about his career.
A Guggenheim Fellow, Heggie is internationally known for his operas and compositions for vocal and instrumental ensembles, and his artistic presence is frequently enjoyed by Festival attendees. He was the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival’s first composer-in-residence in 2006. His works frequently appear on summer festival programs, many of them world premieres commissioned for OICMF.
He composed the haunting and ethereal Earthrise: December 24, 1968 for musical saw and string quartet to honor the iconic NASA photo of Earth rising over the moon, taken during the Apollo 8 mission by astronaut and OICMF patron William Anders. The piece was premiered on the Orcas Center stage in 2017 by sawyer Anita Orne and the Miró Quartet in front of a multiple-panel tapestry image of the photo, woven by fiber artist Geoffrey Shilling.
Heggie’s compositions often portray serious and dark themes, but he also creates light and fanciful works. His Orcas Island Ferry: Suite for Violin/Viola and Piano, abundant with the familiar sounds and rhythms of marine travel, was first performed at the 2012 Festival by OICMF Artistic Director and violinist/violist Aloysia Friedmann and OICMF Artistic Advisor and pianist Jon Kimura Parker. The Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival’s 2022 Season will see the return of Jake Heggie and another world premiere written for the Miró Quartet.
Heggie’s first opera, Dead Man Walking, based on the book of the same name by Sister Helen Prejean, premiered in San Francisco with international stars Susan Graham and Frederica (Flicka) von Stade playing lead roles, and New York’s Metropolitan Opera has announced a bold new production of the opera for a future season. For the Houston Grand Opera production of Dead Man Walking, von Stade, Joyce DiDonato, and Philip Cutlip had leading roles and OICMF’s own Sophie Parker was in the children’s chorus. Graham, von Stade, and Cutlip have all been guest artists of the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival. In addition to his numerous operas, Heggie is also known for his many art songs and concerti, along with chamber music, choral, and orchestral works; he recently completed and recorded Songs for Murdered Sisters, a song cycle based on new poems by Margaret Atwood, and INTONATIONS: Songs from the Violins of Hope with texts by Gene Scheer, a dramatic song cycle featuring mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and violinist Daniel Hope. To read more about Jake Heggie and his work, visit his website.
Tickets: $12 per household/device
Event Tickets link: oicmf.org/tickets/
Jake Heggie more info link: jakeheggie.com/
Contact: Linda Slone at linda@oicmf.org, 360-376-6636
OICMF thanks the Patricia and Christopher Weil Family Foundation for their sponsorship. Tickets are $12 and are available at the OICMF website.
