SOLUS - Bild 2 (extract)

SOLUS - Bild 1 (extract)

This is an aria from our chamber opera, 'Tinderbox', about the visit of writer Hans Christian Andersen to Charles Dickens' home in Kent in July 1857. In this aria, 'How It Glows', sung by BBC Singer, mezzo soprano Margaret Cameron, a jeweller calls at Gads Hill with a repaired bracelet containing a card. Catherine Dickens believes it to be a gift for her from her husband Charles, only to hear her son Henry read the card : 'no jewel can be brighter than Ellen Ternan's eyes, says her faithful servant Charles Dickens.'   Ellen Ternan was a young actress, a protege of Dickens'.

How It Glows

Commissioned by No Divide KC under the "Come As You Are" 2024 Fellowship, in partnership with Lyric Opera of Kansas City. Premiered on 6/15/2024 at Lyric Opera of Kansas City.

Chew On This

Dancing With Demons sample #2

"Lumo & The Dancer" is the first of six fantasy fables in the populist chamber opera, THE DIVIDE. 
A musical fantasia written with specific singers in mind, THE DIVIDE is a new mythology that crosses the boundary between opera and contemporary musical theatre, and creates an imaginary landscape that makes space in which BOTH classical and contemporary singers exist side by side.


Music & Libretto by Divya Maus (BMI). For more info, visit www.divyamaus.com or email divya.maus@gmail.com

THE DIVIDE | Fable I: Lumo & The Dancer

My recently completed chamber opera, Mrs. Manstey’s View, is based on a short story by Edith Wharton. In the opera, we  meet a lonely old women who spends much of her time gazing out her third floor window. She soon learns that a nearby property owner plans to build an extension which would block her precious view.The opera’s themes of loneliness and isolation should have some relevance with today’s audiences in this post  COVD era.!  The cast includes four sopranos and a baritone. A perusal score and midi sample is available on request.

Mrs Manstey's View

We all know the story: A hen on a farm finds a grain of wheat, and decides to turn it into bread. All along the way she asks the other farm animals for help, but they refuse. When the bread is made, however, they all demand a piece of it. Typically, the story ends with the hen refusing to share her bread, keeping the fruits of her labor for herself. In Winell’s retelling, the internal contradictions and battling voices within her take over and wreak havoc upon the whole farm.
The Little Red Hen
libretto & music by Elena Doria Winell*

Recording engineered, produced, mixed, & mastered by Aaron Zimmer

PLAYERS:

Conductor - Jonathan Villegas
Hen - Rose Hegele*
Soprano - Kayleigh Sprouse
Alto - Marjorie Sheiman
Contralto - McKey Monroe*
Tenor - Michael Balsamo
Bass - Rahzé Sinclair
Flute - Eli Gentle
Clarinet - Olivia Harrison
Percussion 1 - Deqi Mu
Percussion 2 - Samuel Hsu
Piano - Daniel Nerger*
Violin 1 - Brian Stuligross*
Violin 2 - Sangwoo Kim
Viola - Daria Dodonova
Cello - Athos Maelstrom*
Bass - Noah Sapp

This premiere was made possible with generous donations from:

Dustyn Geary-Gilman & Kenneth Gilman
Mar Rodriguez & Jodi Milonas
Sonia Gardner & Ken Winell
Kelly Winell
Lily Holliday
Rose Hegele
Cindy Browning
Mary Durante
Terry Holthause
Michael McGuire
Martin Deegan
Bob & Linda Pisciotta
Jamie & Art Lima
Elena Doria Winell

*members of Der Gestanke

The Little Red Hen - Scene One: Who Will Plant the Wheat?

The Little Red Hen - Intermezzo 1: The Wheat is Planted and Grows

The Little Red Hen - Scene Two: Who Will Harvest the Wheat?

The Little Red Hen - Scene Three: Who Will Grind the Wheat?

The Little Red Hen - Intermezzo 2: Baking the Bread

The Little Red Hen - Scene Four: Who Will Eat the Bread?

Daniele Di Virgilio - Clavigo, chamber opera (act 4). 
Recording of the première, 7 December 2024, Budapest Music Center.
Márta Murányi (Sopran), Anna Molnár (Mezzosopran), Georgi Sztojanov (Tenor), Zsombor Cserményi (Bariton)
Classicus Quartet: Eszter Kökény (Violine), Alíz Gál-Szabó (Violine), Péter Tornyai (Viola), Tamás Zétényi (Violoncello)

The chamber opera Clavigo is a project promoted by the Péter Eötvös Contemporary Music Foundation and supported by Kunststiftung NRW and Collegium Hungaricum Berlin, to celebrate the 275th anniversary of the birth of J.W. Goethe and the 250th anniversary of the publication of his play. 
The four acts of the drama were set to music by four different composers: Elias Frisk (1st act), Aurélie Ferrière (2nd act), Daniel Lee Chappell (3rd act) and Daniele Di Virgilio (4th act). 

(PLOT) Goethe’s play is a tale of competing ambition and love. Clavigo is an up-and-coming Spanish writer. In his younger and poorer days, he fell in love with and became engaged to the charming but sickly Marie. However, when his star started to rise, his friends convinced him that Marie would hold his career back. At best, she’d be a distraction; at worst, she’d prevent an advantageous marriage. So he broke the engagement. Marie’s brother Beaumarchais (yes, the French playwright—this is loosely based on real events) has come to Spain to confront Clavigo. He exorts a (potentially career-killing) written confession of wrongdoing from Clavigo but promises not to have it published until Clavigo can ask Marie for pardon and renew their engagement. Clavigo successfully does this. Marie, upon hearing of this, dies. Clavigo (who has not heard the news) stumbles upon her funeral procession and is distraught. Beaumarchais fatally stabs Clavigo, and Clavigo accepts his death as atonement for his crime (@Ilana Walder-Biesanz).

Clavigo, chamber opera (2024)

"Quentin's Captive" is the third of six fantasy fables in the populist chamber opera, THE DIVIDE. Music & Libretto by Divya Maus (BMI). For more info, visit www.divyamaus.com or email divya.maus@gmail.com

THE DIVIDE | Fable 3. Quentin's Captive

The FULL chamber opera ANNA MÅNSDOTTER about the last woman to be excecuted in Sweden in the 1800s, sentenced to death after accusations of murdering her son's wife and for incest with her son 

Opera ANNA MÅNSDOTTER - live Orchestra with synthLead Vocals_Scen1_2

As You Like It is a chamber opera, based on a tale by Shakespeare. 

vocals                  Caro Verheyen
cello                     Angelika Rizopoulou
harp                     Sielke Ramakers
flugelhorn           Gabriel Long
electric guitar     Edoardo Cimino
director               Emma Verstraete
    
Special thanks to

my teacher Annelies Van Parys
conductor Bart Bouckaert
sound & mix Seppe Indigne
graphics Tato Greve
literary advise Sena Nyamador

As You Like It

Silence of the Airwaves

Daniele Di Virgilio is an Italian Berlin-based composer and perpetual researcher. Conceiving composition as a multi-disciplinary and social-oriented expression, his music is inspired by a theatrical imagination and by the interest in psychoanalysis.

Composer Yunfei Li is currently pursuing a DMA in Music Composition at the University of Missouri - Kansas City. She recently graduated from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a Master of Music in Composition. She received Bachelor of Arts degree at the Central Conservatory of Music. Yunfei’s composition includes acoustic music (from chamber ensemble to large orchestra), electroacoustic music, and multimedia music. Her music has been played by the Red Clay Saxophone quartet, Donimo Ensemble, Quintet Sirocco, Duo Entre-nous, Greensboro Symphony Orchestra and percussionist Anders Åstrand. She has won a composition prize from MUSICACOUSTICA-Beijing International Electronic Music Composition Competition in 2015. She has also received an award from the Denver International Electronic Music Composition Competition in 2018. Her music has been featured by News & Record in North Carolina.

Contact info: yunfeilimusic@gmail.com

"T-Room...The Musical" original cast soundtrack, now available on all streaming platforms.

https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0CRGKNRJT?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Gcsw2I3sUkdkT8mNvW4rDfUOL

Divya Maus is a composer, songwriter, and performer currently based in Los Angeles, CA. More info at www.divyamaus.com, and www.facebook.com/divyamausmusic

Composer, performer, and educator based in Boston, MA. Founder & member of Der Gestank.

Swedish composer Stellan Sagvik is one style varied and rich in expression musician. He has written more than 250 pieces sizing from solo flute to Grand Opera, six string quartets, three great symphonies, many operas, with duration from 10 to 220 minutes, several dance dramas, film music, incidental theatre music, hours of choir music, chamber pieces with and without vocal, electro aucustical tape pieces, all this in a very communicative style that awakens emotions, feelings, views and sensations.

Delightfully nostalgic musical comedy… the simplicity of the story is part of its enchantment” The Stage
“This is Dennis Potter style.  Could become a Fringe cult” London Evening Standard
“An amiable exercise in nostalgia… the period flavour is lovingly recreated” The Sunday Telegraph

New tracks tagged #Chamber Opera