Mind on Fire to premiere A new opera from Michael Hersch and shane mccrae
Michael Hersch
and we, each
an opera in two acts after texts of Shane McCrae
Hersch’s much anticipated new opera, a work which sets texts of the celebrated American poet Shane McCrae, to receive its world premiere in Baltimore in 2024
Presented by Mind on Fire
with Ah Young Hong and Jesse Blumberg
Directed by James Matthew Daniel
Conducted by Tito Muñoz
Saturday, September 28, 2024
Sunday, September 29, 2024
Theatre Project
45 West Preston Street
Baltimore, MD, 21201
ticket information available soon
Sunday, October 13, 2024
Bloomberg Performance Center
555 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington D.C., 20001
ticket information available soon
Thursday, February 6, 2025
National Sawdust
80 North 6th Street
Brooklyn, NY, 11249
ticket information available soon
Left to Right: Shane McCrae, Tito Muñoz, James Matthew Daniel, Ah Young Hong, Jesse Blumberg, and Michael Hersch
Coming only weeks after Michael Hersch’s opera POPPAEA was nominated for the 2023 Austrian Music Theater Prize for “Best Contemporary Music Theater,” Mind on Fire is excited to announce the world premiere of Hersch’s newest opera, a work which finds him turning his attention closer to home. The opera is about the treacherous territories of relationships built around the searing texts of American poet Shane McCrae. The opera is the result of a close collaboration between McCrae and Hersch.
McCrae, one of America’s most celebrated poets, has written work characterized as “ingenious ... where the dignity of English meter meets, as in a mosh pit, the vitality - and often the brutality - of American speech.” (The New Yorker); “...dangerous” (The New York Times); a poet whose work “isn’t easy to shake” (Publisher’s Weekly); a poet who confronts the challenging “facts of the world, head-on — while... transposing the literal into the otherworldly.” (Los Angeles Review of Books).
Hersch, a composer of “uncompromising brilliance” (The Washington Post) whose work has been described by The New York Times as “viscerally gripping and emotionally transformative music ... claustrophobic and exhilarating at once, with moments of sublime beauty nestled inside thickets of dark virtuosity,” is widely considered among the most gifted composers of his generation.
This new opera brings together two of America’s most urgent and compelling creative voices:
Shane McCrae on the creation of the new opera
"... I realized I had discovered something special. There was both tumultuous darkness and great intelligence in the music, and these appealed tremendously to my sensibilities ... This completion of Hersch’s project would be the fulfillment of one of the few long-held hopes I’ve had for my work—an impossible fulfillment ... I can’t think of another composer so suited to expressing with music what I’ve tried to say with words. By that, I don’t mean to suggest that I think my words themselves are especially valuable, but I do think Hersch is the right composer to make those words speak more directly and more fully than they could on their own—to make even the best of them more than they are—and if I have said anything worth saying as I’ve tried to write about God and America ... amongst other subjects, a setting by Hersch would make it possible for what I’ve said to be more deeply heard.
I have outgrown my youthful assumption that I have easy access to truths about human nature, but I have never stopped trying to say true things about people. Over the years, I have found that many of the things it seemed right to say, things that seemed true, have also been difficult to say, often touching upon subjects even I would rather not say anything about. I was obligating myself to look long and hard at people, and so obligating myself to write about the difficulties between them. This obligation has led me to write some poems that are hard for me to read, and I imagine they must be hard for others to read, though I have always tried to make my poems as beautiful as I could make them—when beauty was appropriate.” -Shane McCrae
Michael Hersch on the work of Shane McCrae
”It is not often that one is stopped in their tracks by work of imagination that can conjure images of the opposing extremes of human behavior in equal measure with such precision, and often in the closest of proximity. Somehow, this is what much of Shane McCrae’s work achieves. The ability to navigate these kinds of juxtapositions is a kind of command that I have encountered only a few times in my life. One of the more remarkable aspects of his work is how it at once speaks so unsparingly and accurately about our public and private spaces. Again, the ability to capture such disparate states of being is uncanny.” -Michael Hersch
This opera also reunites Hersch with two of his most trusted collaborators. Renowned soprano Ah Young Hong has sung the title role in Hersch’s POPPAEA, as the lone soloist in his On the Threshold of Winter, and in many other Hersch premieres written for her over the past decade, has. She been described by Opera News as an artist of “fearlessness and consummate artistry,” The New Yorker as “transfixing,” and in Hersch’s monodrama, The New York Times called her "the opera's blazing, lone star.” Director James Matthew Daniel directed the acclaimed 2015 production of On the Threshold of Winter the world premiere of AGATHA with Hong, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Reto Bieri and Camerata Bern in 2020, and the fully realized version of Hersch’s Images from a Closed Ward and the FLUX Quartet.
Jesse Blumberg is one of today’s most in-demand baritones. His repertoire spans music from the Renaissance to works created in the 21st century. Performances include the world premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon’s The Grapes of Wrath at Minnesota Opera, Gordon’s Green Sneakers, Bernstein’s MASS at London’s Royal Festival Hall, Lisa Bielawa’s The Lay of the Love and Death, various productions with Boston Early Music Festival, and featured roles with Atlanta Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Opera Atelier, and Boston Lyric Opera. Jesse has made concert appearances with American Bach Soloists, Boston Baroque, Apollo’s Fire, Oratorio Society of New York, Montréal Baroque Festival, Arion Baroque, Early Music Vancouver, Pacific MusicWorks, and on Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series.
Six scenes from six Mind on Fire shows featuring (left to right): Ty Page, Ada Pinkston, Brian Ennals, Irene Kim, Laure Drogoul, and James Young
“[Mind on Fire] offers some of the most fascinating experimental productions in the area.” (Baltimore Sun)
Formed in 2017, Mind on Fire is a modular chamber orchestra and performing arts organization devoted to the creation and presentation of new, ephemeral art. As an ensemble we perform and commission new works for classical music by living composers, music that speaks to the experience of right now. As a presenting organization, we have featured many brilliant artists in the Baltimore area including poets, puppeteers, somatic artists, comedians, actors, video artists, and other bands/musicians ranging from droning folk to prog hip hop.
It is our goal to present all art with equal gravity and importance regardless of performance practice or history, to unify the appreciators of the Baltimore arts scene, and to create a comfortable and welcoming environment for people to have new experiences. We strive for artistic excellence but also to be active, thoughtful members of our community, using our skills as presenters and performers to be an artistic resource for the city at large.
Baltimore is a community of considerable, virtuosic breadth, and Mind on Fire was created to engage in creative dialogue with that community. In the early 2000s the city's primary concert mode was the 'round robin,' in which aesthetically disparate acts would perform one after the other. Following that model, Mind on Fire eschews the traditional, long-form classical music concert structure in favor of shorter sets, sharing the bill with artists in radically different genres with the intent to form lines of connection between personalized aesthetics.
More information coming soon.
All Press Inquiries - EMAIL: music@mindonfire.org
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