IN A GROVE

Christopher Cerrone (b. 1984, New York) is internationally acclaimed for his compositions. His work is characterized by a subtle handling of timbre and resonance, a deep literary fluency, and a flair for multimedia collaborations. Cerrone’s music balances lushness and austerity, immersive textures and telling details, dramatic impact and interiority. His multi-GRAMMY-nominated compositions are utterly compelling and uniquely his own.

Cerrone’s recent opera, In a Grove (libretto by Stephanie Fleischmann), premiered in March 2022. Co-produced by Pittsburgh Opera and LA Opera and directed by Mary Birnbaum, it received a sold-out run and was hailed as “a vividly immersive thriller” by The New York Times. The opera subsequently had its midwestern premiere at Northwestern University in Fall 2022 and is slated for its New York debut at the PROTOTYPE Festival in January 2025.

Other recent projects include Beaufort Scales, an oratorio for voices, electronics, and video commissioned by Lorelei Ensemble and premiered at Mass MoCA; The Year of Silence, based on the story of the same name by Kevin Brockmeier, for the Louisville Symphony and baritone Dashon Burton; A Body, Moving, a brass concerto for the Cincinnati Symphony; Breaks and Breaks, a violin concerto for Jennifer Koh and the Detroit Symphony; The Insects Became Magnetic, an orchestral work with electronics for the Los Angeles Philharmonic; and The Air Suspended, a piano concerto for Shai Wosner.

STEPHANIE FLEISCHMANN is a librettist and playwright whose texts serve as blueprints for intricate three-dimensional sonic and visual worlds. Her “lyrical monologues” (New York Times), “finely tuned” opera libretti (Opera News), plays, and music-theater works have been performed internationally and across the United States. She is the 2022 recipient of the Opera America Campbell Librettist Prize.

 Fleischmann collaborates closely with a wide range of composers, responding to and supporting each artist’s unique voice with language that sings and dramatic structures that activate and hold space for music. She writes texts designed to serve as blueprints for operas that are highly imagistic, powerfully theatrical, and intensely human.

Opera libretti include: In A Grove (Christopher Cerrone, LA Opera/Pittsburgh Opera, directed by Mary Birnbaum; In a Circle Records; NY Times Best Classical Music Albums of 2023); 2 operas with Michael Hersch: Medea (Ensemble MusikFabrik/Schola Heidelberg, Cologne, for Sarah Maria Sun) and Poppaea (Wien Modern/ZeitRäume Basel, nominated for 2023 Austrian Music-theater Prize; New Focus Recordings); Dido Reimagined (Melinda Wagner, for Dawn Upshaw & Brentano String Quartet; Hopkins Center for the Arts, 92nd Street Y, Wake Forest University, and more); 2 operas with Jeremy Howard Beck: Another City (Houston Grand Opera) & The Long Walk (American Lyric Theater/Opera Saratoga/Utah Opera/Pittsburgh Opera); 2 operas with David Hanlon: The Pigeon Keeper (Santa Fe Opera & TBA) & After the Storm (Houston Grand Opera); Remedios Varios, with Carlos Carrillo (Chicago Opera Theater); a new commission for West Edge Opera; Paradiso (Yevgeniy Sharlat; Hub New Music; workshop, Austin Opera); Tevye’s Daughters, (Alex Weiser; American Lyric Theater); Arkhipov (Peter Knell; Jacaranda); The Property (Lyric Opera of Chicago). Collaborations in progress: The Visitation, an opera for a vanishing world (Christina Campanella, Opera America); Barrel of Laughs, (Julia Adolphe, Opera America/National Sawdust). Texts for voice: Anna Clyne (Scottish National Chamber Orchestra), Chris Cerrone (Yale/Northeastern; Conspirare), Gity Razaz (Brooklyn Youth Chorus), Matthew Recio (Ithaca College Treble Chorale), Olga Neuwirth (Aldeburgh, Basel, Berlin).

Selected plays/music-theater works: Sound House (the Flea/New Georges); with Christina Campanella: The Visitation, a sound walk (urhere.art), Red Fly/Blue Bottle (HERE; EMPAC, Noorderzon) and The Secret Lives of Coats (Red Eye); Agave (w/ Dmitry Troyanovsky/Daniel Kluger; Brandeis University); Niagara (Bobby Previte/Daniel Fish, Hudson Opera House); The Sweetest Life (Saskia Lane, New Victory LabWorks); Eloise & Ray (New Georges); What the Moon Saw (Son of Semele). Performed/developed via: Roundhouse Studio (London), Exit Festival (France), MASS MoCA, Birmingham Rep (UK), Synchronicity, Roadworks, Soho Rep, Mabou Mines/SUITE, Public Theater.

Additional grants/Fellowships: Café Royal Cultural Foundation, Toulmin Foundation, Venturous Theater Fund Capital Grant, Howard Foundation Fellowship in Playwriting (Brown University), 3 NYSCA Individual Artist Commissions, NEA Opera/Music-Theater, 3 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships, Tennessee Williams Fellowship (University of the South), Frederick Loewe Award; MAPFund, Opera America, NY State Music Fund, Greenwall Foundation, Mid-Atlantic Fund, Whitfield Cook Prize, Macdowell, Hedgebrook. Alumna: New Dramatists; New Georges Audrey Residency; Composer Librettists Development Program at American Lyric Theater; HARP (Here Arts Center; Playwrights Center Core Writer. BA Wesleyan University, MFA Brooklyn College.

Described as a “force to be reckoned with” by the Washington Post, Raquel Acevedo Klein is an active conductor, vocalist, composer, and instrumentalist. Raquel has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Radio City Music Hall, Town Hall, Park Avenue Armory, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, WNYC, BAM, St. Ann’s Warehouse, Celebrate Brooklyn!, the Guggenheim, Rockefeller Center, National Sawdust, Caramoor, Bard Fisher Center and elsewhere.

Raquel conducts for the New York Philharmonic, Roomful of Teeth, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, and Beth Morrison Projects among other projects. She has premiered works and operas by Philip Glass, Caroline Shaw, John Adams, Nico Muhly, Paola Prestini, Bryce Dessner, and George Lewis to name a few. As a vocalist, she has recorded and performed with artists including Glen Hansard, Arcade Fire, Bon Iver, The National, Grizzly Bear, Sufjan Stevens, and New York Philharmonic among others.

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Raquel’s performances and curations have caught the attention of publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, The Los Angeles Times, Time Out New York, The Wire and Hyperallergic. In 2022, Raquel formed a trio with Caroline Shaw and Angélica Negrón and performed a new song cycle comprised of voice, electronics, viola, accordion and more. As part of NY PopsUp, Raquel curated a four-week festival entitled NYC FREE, to celebrate the opening of Little Island in 2021. Raquel premiered an original, audience-interactive vocal symphony entitled “Polyphonic Interlace,” made from 40 recorded layers of her voice that audiences can play using their phones.

Mary Birnbaum has directed opera and music theater around the world, including staging critically acclaimed productions of Rossi’s L’Orfeo, Missy Mazzoli’s Proving Up, and Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia at The Juilliard School and The Classical Style at Carnegie Hall. She was nominated as best newcomer at The European Opera Awards in 2015; in 2019 her production of Puccini’s La bohème opened the Santa Fe Opera season, and her production of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas toured to Opera Holland Park and Opéra de Versailles. Birnbaum has also directed productions at Opera Philadelphia, Seattle Opera, Bard Music Festival, Virginia Opera, Virginia Arts Festival, Ojai Festival, Montclair Peak Performances, and Boston Baroque in the US, as well as in Taiwan (with the National Symphony Orchestra), Central America (National Theatre of Costa Rica and Guatemala), Australia, and Israel.
In demand for her skills as a collaborator on new works, Birnbaum has created world premieres of works by contemporary artists including Jeremy Denk, Steven Stucky, Frank London, Elise Thoron, Kristin Kuster, and Megan Levad. She most recently directed the world premiere of In A Grove by Christopher Cerrone and Stephanie Fleischmann at Pittsburgh Opera.
As a faculty member of The Juilliard School since 2011, Birnbaum teaches acting to singers and serves as dramatic advisor to the master’s degree candidates. She also coaches acting in the Lindemann Young Artists Program at The Metropolitan Opera. She was named general and artistic director of Opera Saratoga in Saratoga Springs, New York, in 2023.  A graduate of Harvard College, Mary Birnbaum trained professionally in physical theater at L’École Jacques Lecoq in Paris.