At A Loss Programme Book

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BIOGRAPHIES MICHAEL GALLEN COMPOSER, WRITER, DIRECTOR Michael Gallen (born 1986) is an Irish composer, writer and performer. Having been brought up primarily with Irish traditional and folk music, he later pursued studies in composition and multidisciplinary performance creation in Paris, and is most comfortable meandering at the borders of different musical forms. His work has been performed by Crash Ensemble, ConTempo Quartet, Chamber Choir Ireland and Le Balcon. Works of note include Wilde Stories, a suite for the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and Cór na nÓg responding to Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales; What You Forget, a large-scale choral work commissioned for the Ireland 2016 project, and Session, a co-creation with dance artists Colin Dunne and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, which toured across the main stages of Europe in 2019- 20. Elsewhere, based on the story of the 1919 Monaghan Asylum Soviet, has been in development throughout 2019, supported by the Arts Council, Creative Monaghan, the Abbey Theatre, the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris and the Opéra de Rouen Normandie. The project is a co-production between French ensemble Miroirs Étendus and new Irish opera company Straymaker, of which Michael is Artistic Director. His operatic oeuvre to date includes Extraterrestrial Events, and Caligari, a live videoopera work seen at Electric Picnic in 2017. His work also featured in the Composing the Island festival presented by RTÉ and the National Concert Hall in 2016. He is the lead vocalist and songwriter with Irish band Ana Gog and performs as a solo pianist under the moniker Sudden Wells. ORLA BOYLAN SOPRANO Irish soprano Orla Boylan has appeared internationally on leading opera stages including La Scala, Salzburg Festival, Sydney Opera House, Royal Danish Opera, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, English National Opera, Opera North and New York City Opera. Throughout her career she has been greatly in demand as an interpreter of German, Russian and Czech repertoire. Her performances as Tatyana in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, Lisa in Tchaikovsky’s Pique Dame, the title roles in Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, Janáček’s Jenůfa and Katya Kabanova, Sieglinde in Wagner’s Die Walküre and Chrysothemis in Strauss’s Elektra affirmed her international reputation. Her move into dramatic repertoire brought her notable acclaim with The Telegraph writing of her Opera North performance in the title role of Puccini’s Turandot, “here as the ice princess she is operating at full throttle, sailing above the stave and glorifying in her power”. Her thrilling performances as Senta in Wagner’s Der fliegender Holländer brought her international success both on stage and in concert (Royal Danish Opera, Oslo Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony Orchestra) and her performances in the title role of Puccini’s Tosca (Opera Ireland, New Zealand Opera) have been broadcast worldwide on the internet and in cinemas throughout New Zealand. Concert appearances include excerpts of Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos and Die Walküre with the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI di Torino, and her recent debut as Soprano I in Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir was released on CD. She made her INO debut in the title role of Verdi’s Aida in 2018. 04
FERGUS SHEIL CONDUCTOR Fergus is the founding artistic director of Irish National Opera and has also worked for all major Irish opera companies. He has conducted a wide-ranging repertoire of 35 different operas. Highlights include Verdi’s Aida, Brian Irvine and Netia Jones’s Least Like The Other – Searching for Rosemary Kennedy and Rossini’s La Cenerentola (Irish National Opera), Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, John Adams’s Nixon in China, Rossini’s The Barber of Seville (Wide Open Opera), Mozart’s Don Giovanni and, in 2017, Robert O’Dwyer’s Irish-language opera, Eithne (Opera Theatre Company), the first modern performance of the work, which was subsequently recorded and issued on CD by RTÉ lyric fm. In the orchestral field he has appeared with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, the Ulster Orchestra, the Irish Chamber Orchestra and other orchestras at home and abroad. He has toured the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra throughout Ireland in Beethoven’s Choral Symphony and Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony. As a choral conductor he has worked with the State Choir Latvija (giving the world premiere of Arvo Pärt’s The Deer’s Cry) and the BBC Singers. Internationally he has fulfilled engagements in the USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia, the UK, France, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Malta and Estonia. Before founding Irish National Opera he led both Wide Open Opera (which he founded in 2012) and Opera Theatre Company. Since 2011 he has been responsible for the production of 37 different operas, which have been seen around Ireland as well as internationally in London, Edinburgh, New York, Amsterdam and Luxembourg. SARAH BACON PRODUCTION DESIGNER Sarah trained at the Motley Theatre Design Course in London, having previously studied architecture at University College Dublin. In 2009 she was a Linbury Prize finalist at the National Theatre, London. She designs for theatre, opera, dance and film. Recent theatre designs (set and costume) include Beginning/ The Children, ASSASSINS (the Gate Theatre), City Song, Anna Karenina, The Shadow of a Gunman (winner of the 2016 Irish Times Irish Theatre Award for best set design, and also nominated for best costume design; Abbey Theatre), Tina’s Idea of Fun (Peacock Theatre), Melt, The Effect, Everything Between Us (Rough Magic), The Water Orchard (Collapsing Horse) and costume designs for The Rehearsal, Playing The Dane and The Patient Gloria (Pan Pan Theatre). Designs for opera include Cilea’s L’Arlesiana (Wexford Festival Opera and Teatro Pergolesi, Jesi), Bizet’s La Tragédie de Carmen (best opera nomination, Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards 2008), Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore, Richard Wargo’s Losers, Balfe’s The Sleeping Queen, Puccini’s Suor Angelica, La Tragédie de Carmen, Donizetti’s Rita, Poulenc’s La Voix humaine (Wexford Festival Opera ShortWorks), Handel’s Xerxes, and La Tragédie de Carmen (English Touring Opera), Matt Rogers’s The Raven, Philip Glass’s Les Enfants Terribles (UK premiere), Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia (Grimeborn @ Arcola Theatre), Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito and Carisle Floyd’s Susannah (Hampstead Garden Opera), and Xerxes (Opera Theatre Company). 05
Page 1 and 2: AT A LOSS MUSIC & TEXT MICHAEL GALL
Page 3: RTÉ CONCERT ORCHESTRA violin Bogda
Page 7 and 8: HUGH O’CONOR SERIES DIRECTOR Hugh
Page 9 and 10: IRISH NATIONAL OPERA Irish National
Page 11: 20 COMPOSERS 20 OPERAS GERALD BARRY

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