Composers Celebration
On March 18, 2023, Opera Philadelphia will host an exciting fundraising event celebrating 10 years of the company’s groundbreaking Composer in Residence Program (CIR).
When it launched a decade ago, the CIR was the nation’s first comprehensive, operatic program of its kind, providing a highly individualized professional development path for today’s most promising opera composers. Funded by the Mellon Foundation, the program has and continues to foster tomorrow’s masterpieces of opera through individualized creative development.
Over the past 10 years there have been eight brilliant Composers in Residence who have participated in the program, during and after which they created more than 20 new operas, including such acclaimed world premieres as Missy Mazzoli’s Breaking the Waves, David Hertzberg's The Wake World, Lembit Beecher's Sky on Swings, and Tyshawn Sorey’s Save the Boys, as well as many others. Their works have resulted in numerous awards, including a Grammy nomination for Best Opera Recording, two Music Critics Association of North America Awards for Best New Opera, and several finalists for the International Opera Awards.
We invite you to join us on Saturday, March 18, when all of these composers– Lembit Beecher, Courtney Bryan, David Hertzberg, David T. Little, Missy Mazzoli, Andrew Norman, Rene Orth, and Tyshawn Sorey – will be returning to Philadelphia for this one extraordinary night celebrating the anniversary of this landmark program.
The evening will include a special performance with works from each composer, a cocktail reception, and an elegant, seated dinner in the Kimmel Center’s Perelman Theater.
Performing at this one-of-kind event will be world-renowned artists, former and current Opera Philadelphia Emerging Artists, and more! Tenor Lawrence Brownlee will return to perform an excerpt from Cycles of My Being, which he premiered with Opera Philadelphia and then went on to perform at Carnegie Hall and Lyric Opera of Chicago. Soprano Sharlene Joynt also returns to Philadelphia to sing an aria from the role she created in the World Premiere of Sky on Swings. We’ll also be joined by: Amanda Bottoms, Aryssa Burrs, Kara Goodrich, Ashley Milanese, Sun-Ly Pierce, Alek Shrader, Tiffany Townsend, and Opera Philadelphia Head of Music Staff Grant Loehnig.
Sponsorship packages and a limited number of single tickets are on sale now. Your contribution to this special fundraising event will help to support Opera Philadelphia’s new works practice and to advance the future of the art form you love.
For more information, please email events@operaphila.org or call 215.893.5915.
MapPerelman Theater
| Sat, Mar 18 | 6:00 p.m. |
Doors open at 5:30 P.M.
Concert from 6:00 – 7:15 P.M.
For all Celebration ticket holders
Cocktail Reception from 7:15 – 8:30 P.M.
For Enthusiast level ticket holders and above
Seated Dinner from 8:30 – 11:00 P.M.
For Benefactor and Vivace ticket holders and above
