A new setting of a classic text - written for my amazing wife on our wedding day

Vocalists:
Adrienne Lotto
Kathleen Cantrell
Elizabeth Merrill 
Katie Seiler 
Sarah Moga 
Nathan Fletcher
Ethan Fran
Sean Salamon
Dan Faber
Nathan Fletcher

Recording Engineer - Charles Mueller
Recorded at St. Paul's Carroll Street in Brooklyn

Set Me as a Seal

Set Me As A Seal

This piece was originally scored for large chamber ensemble (Fl, Cl, Bari Sax, Bsn, Hn, Tpt, Tbn, Gtr, B Gtr, Pno, Perc, Drum Set). I wasn't able to get a good recording of that arrangement, so I decided to do a version using instruments I could play myself! 

Silver Cord: II - Europa

This is a quick demo I threw together for the first movement of a four movement piece I'm working on called Attractors. The actual instrumentation is violin, guitar, piano, cello, bass, percussion (cajon). In this demo I recorded the violin and cello parts on guitar because the midi sounded ridiculous. Quality recording coming soon. 

Attractors: I - Rabbit Hole (Demo)

Marcus Maroney, Contemplation

Claire Myers, soprano
Dmitry Glivinskiy, piano
Ian Tyson, clarinet

December 2015

Contemplation

Finally put together a presentable recording of this piece that I wrote back in the spring of 2014. Accompanying my guitar and voice is a mixed chamber sextet of flute, clarinet, French horn, violin, viola, and cello. Having recorded the sextet first during a live reading session with no click track, it was a considerable challenge to record my guitar and vocal parts later in the studio and get them to line up both in terms of tempo and tuning. But after a determined effort, I was finally able to piece it together (a mere two years and several abandoned attempts later).  

12,000 Years

December 2, 2017 live premiere of "Telescope," a tone-poem for orchestra
Bard College Conservatory Orchestra
Jean-Marie Zeitouni, guest conductor

Pictured: The International Space Station (ISS) transiting the only supermoon of 2017, on December 2. Photograph by NASA (c).

Telescope

While the germinal ideas were conceived in late 2016, Lachryma was composed in the fall of 2017 and completed on December 31. I wrote this piece for several reasons: first, because I had not written anything for solo piano since the fall of 2014, three years before, and wanted again to explore the instrument in its solo capabilities with fresh taste and imagination; second, as a kind of etude to challenge the performer rhythmically and explore the piano’s rich variety of sounds; and third, to mark the end of a season of my personal and musical life and the beginning of a new one. Lachryma (Latin for “tear”) expresses the idea of a conflict between emotions, with an underlying pulse that can be envisioned as a flow of tears or as a heartbeat. Sorrow, wistfulness, anger, and calm reflection blend together in a whirlpool of introspective struggle, which eventually dies down to an atmosphere of peace.

Recorded at The Juilliard School composers' concert in Paul Recital Hall on February 12, 2018 by pianist Tengku Irfan.

Lachryma (2017) - Tengku Irfan, piano

A Bridge for Three (2017). A 20-minute opera for three singers (tenor, baritone, mezzo-soprano) and chamber orchestra or piano. Libretto by Megan Cohen.

Composite recording featuring performances with piano accompaniment from both Washington and Hartford casts.

Washington cast (WNO) (Washington National Opera's American Opera Initiative workshop performance, October 2017): Alexander McKissick (tenor), Michael Hewitt (baritone) & Eliza Bonet (mezzo-soprano), accompanied by Paul Jarski (piano) and conducted by George Manahan. Stage direction by Andrea Dorf McGray.

Hartford cast (HOT) (Hartford Opera Theater’s 9th annual New In November Festival at Christ Church Cathedral, Nov. 2018): Spencer Hamlin (tenor), Dana Kephart (mezzo-soprano) & Thomas Laskowski (baritone), accompanied by Sarah Puckett (piano) and conducted by Daniel D'Addio. Stage direction by Michelle Hendrick.

1) Ensemble: Opening (WNO) (0:07)
2) Some Devil Dares (HOT) (3:09)
3) Better Without Me (WNO) (5:35)
4) To Whom it May Concern (WNO) (8:45)
5-6) Ensemble: Falling/Time stops; they see each other/My quiet (WNO) (11:13)
7) I want more time (WNO) (13:47)
8) Time to let go (WNO) (14:31)
9) This paper thing (HOT) (15:00)
9.5) Control the fall (WNO) (15:52)
10) Do you hear them? (WNO) (17:36)
10.5) How did I live? (HOT) (18:20)

Commissioned by the Washington National Opera at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and first produced at the Kennedy Center during the 2017/2018 season. World premiere in Jan. 2018 at the WNO’s American Opera Initiative Festival by singers from the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program (Alexander McKissick, Michael Hewitt & Eliza Bonet), accompanied by Musicians of the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, conducted by George Manahan. Stage direction by Andrea Dorf McGray.

Full instrumentation (chamber orchestra):  Flute/Picc., Oboe/C.A., Clarinet, Bassoon, Horn, Trumpet, Trombone, Percussion (1 player: Timp., Tam-tam, Susp. cymb., Bass dr. (kick), Xylo., Glock., Vibr., Tub. bell in F), Piano, Violin, Viola, cello, Contrabass

A Bridge for Three (piano version) (live composite, two casts)

Spenser & Mike discuss the science behind COVID-19, the political implications of the pandemic, and the need to come together as a community (just, not in person please!)

Solidarity In The Time Of COVID-19

Nathan Fletcher’s music has been described as "melodious, neo-Romantic” (Anne Midgette, The Washington Post), “haunting... [and] genuinely moving…” (Katie Stanton, The Oxford Student). In 2017, Washington National Opera commissioned Nathan to compose an original chamber opera, A Bridge for Three, in collaboration with librettist Megan Cohen. Bridge premiered at the Kennedy Center and was subsequently produced by Hartford Opera Theater (2018) and at Texas Christian University (2019).

Nathan composed the music for two short opera films written and directed by Adam Taylor – Someone Like Me (L'opera di Facebook) and Rumspringawakening – which were both included in Opera Philadelphia’s inaugural film screening series at Festival O22, having been selected from more than 800 submissions. Someone Like Me has been described as a “must-see” (Jenna Simeonov, Schmopera) and “charming, dirty, irreverent, and a ton of fun” (Peter Szep, co-founder, New York Opera Alliance). Among many other film festival selections and accolades, The Facebook Opera took home the Audience Favorite and Judges’ Award prizes at the July 2018 Iron Mule Festival in Brooklyn, won Best Musical at the 2018 Orlando Film Festival, and received a Telly Award in 2018. Rumspringawakening won the Audience Favourite and Gold Medal prizes at the Autumn 2019 London-Worldwide Comedy Short Film Fest, as well as a Silver Medal in the August 2019 Global Music Awards.

For his orchestral song cycle on poems by Edna Saint Vincent Millay (premiered in 2017 by soprano Maria Eleni Zollo and the Mannes Orchestra), Nathan received an Honorable Mention in the 2017 ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, having been a finalist in 2015 and 2016. Nathan is a member of ASCAP.

Other places where Nathan’s compositions have been performed include Opera America’s National Opera Center in New York, The Bushnell in Hartford, the Pilch Studio Theatre (Oxford, U.K.), the New York Festival of Song’s 2016 NYFOS Next Festival, the Downtown Brooklyn Chamber Music Festival, the University of Connecticut, the 2015 ACDA National Conference in Salt Lake City, and the Soapbox Gallery in Brooklyn.

Choral singing has been a formative influence on Nathan’s musical life, and he maintains an active career as an ensemble singer. Currently a tenor in the Schola Cantorum at the Church of Saint Vincent Ferrer in New York, he sang as a treble from 2002 to 2006 at Saint Thomas Church, graduating from its Choir School in 2007. He returned to Saint Thomas from 2017 to 2019 as a Gentleman of the Choir. He has sung as a regular chorister or frequent substitute at numerous houses of worship around New York and Connecticut including Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, the Basilica of Saint John the Evangelist, and Temple Emanu-El. He has also appeared with early music group Ensemble Origo and new music group S.E.M. Ensemble. In 2018, Nathan joined a chorus of monks in an extravagant performance with pop superstar Madonna at the Met Gala. Nathan is a member of the American Choral Directors Association, having been a finalist in its 2014 Brock Student Composition Competition.

Nathan received his B.M. summa cum laude from UConn in 2015, studying with Kenneth Fuchs, and his M.M. from the Mannes School of Music in 2017, studying with Lowell Liebermann. He is an adjunct lecturer at the City University of New York (Baruch College), where he teaches courses in music theory and music appreciation, and directs the Baruch Chorus.

A Bridge for Three (piano version) (live composite, two casts)

Nathan Fletcher

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