It’s the holiday season, and that means music is happening all over the place. Many of our Seagle singers are performing in gigs (some holiday related, some not) all around the country. There are quite a few Messiahs, but look a little closer and you’ll find an interesting cornucopia of festive holiday treats. Here is a completely random chronological sampling of some of the performances you might want to add to your December calendar!

DEC 9 @ 8:00PM – Messiah // Handel
Cobb Theater, Wharton Center – East Lansing, MI

David Anderson, tenor and Kyle White, baritone will be featured soloists for Michigan State University’s annual performance of Handel’s Messiah. If you can’t make it to Michigan, this performance will also be live-streamed. Tickets and further information can be found here.

 

DEC 9 @ 8:00PM AND SUNDAY, DEC 10 @ 2:30PM – Christmas Oratorio // Saint-Saens
Belleville Congregational Church – Newburyport, MA

Megan Callahan, mezzo-soprano, Colin Campbell, tenor, and Michael Miller, baritone, are featured soloists with the Newburyport Choral Society for its annual Winter Concert. The central piece of the program is Saint-Saens’ Christmas Oratorio. It looks like Sunday’s performance is already sold out, but you can still get tickets for Saturday night. More information can be found here.

DEC 8, 9, 16 @ 7:30PM & DEC 17 @ 2:30PM – Home for the Holidays
Wayne and Kristine Lueders Florentine Opera Center – Milwaukee, WI

Nate Hill, baritone, appears with his fellow Florentine Opera Studio artists in a program of winter tunes and carols. Tickets and information here.

DEC 11 @ 8:00PM – La Liberazione di Ruggiero // Caccini
Hatch Recital Hall, Eastman School of Music – Rochester, NY

Kevin Bryant, tenor, will sing the role of Ruggiero in a concert performance of Francesca Caccini’s La Liberazione di Ruggiero with Eastman’s Collegium Musicum. This rare treat was the first opera ever composed by a woman, and the free concert will be conducted by Paul O’Dette, music director of the Boston Early Music Festival. More information can be found here.

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Hi Seagle family! It’s been a while since you’ve heard from us here at the blog. But rest assured, the blog is BACK, and we’re so excited to share what’s been going on for the last few months!!

Seagle’s 2017 season was a huge success, featuring two works never before produced by the Colony. The season opened with Adam Guettel’s The Light in the Piazza, a lushly lyric Tony-winning musical set in Florence, Italy in the 1950s. With this production we warmly welcomed stage director Jay Lesenger, formerly of the Chautauqua Festival and Northwestern University, to Seagle for the first time. And while our productions are usually performed with two pianos, this show was made even more magical with the presence of harp, played expertly by Karlinda Caldicott, which Guettel used to illustrate the romantic Italian sunlight.

This summer also featured the piano-vocal premiere of Herschel Garfein’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, based on the comedic play by Tom Stoppard. The singers had their work cut out for them with Garfein’s complicated score, but conductor Andrew Bisantz and music director Jennifer McGuire did a masterful job of enabling our emerging artists in bringing the score to life. This show was also a bit of a low-voice lovefest, with two baritones, a bass-baritone, and a mezzo-soprano forming the core principal roles. At turns silly or serious, “R&G” was an exciting project and we look forward to hearing about the work’s future successes. [Read more…]

WELCOME TO OUR NEW SMC ARTISTS! 

Happy March, everyone!! Spring is hopefully just around the corner, and spring means new beginnings. We have a lot of exciting news and things to look forward to! If you haven’t seen the shining new faces we are welcoming for 2017, you are seriously missing out. Check them out HERE. We couldn’t be more anxious for June to get here, and not just because we’re sick of snow! It’s going to be a wonderful season, and we’re thrilled to have all of our 2017 artists lighting up the hill.

So, what comes first; choosing the artists, or choosing the season repertoire? It’s a bit of a puzzle to put together. Some of the things we consider when choosing the next season are:

1. Which of last year’s artists will probably be returning? We know this by asking each individual artist in their exit interview. And we want to be able to feature as many returning artists as possible in roles that are a good fit for them.
2. What would be a good, balanced combination of shows? We always choose two operas and two musicals, to keep things fun and interesting, as well as to help our artists be versatile! These shows must have enough parts to feature each of the 32 Young Artists in at least one role, particularly between the two middle shows of the season and the children’s opera – we want everyone to have something in one of those three shows and typically do full company shows at the beginning and the end.
3. What shows can we choose that we know our audience will like, or at least appreciate? Of course in recent years we’ve also tried hard to incorporate new or recently premiered late 20^th or 21^st century operas and will continue that in the future, because new opera is something we have a certain love for, and believe in.

So, to answer the above question — the repertoire is indeed chosen before we start recruiting singers.

Would that make the repertoire the chicken or the egg? Hmmmm. Well, we definitely don’t think any of our singers are chicken — they have so much courage!  [Read more…]

Happy 2017, music lovers! We hope you enjoyed some rest, some relaxation with family and/or friends, and perhaps some snow angels in the fluffy white stuff that defines The Holidays over the course of the last month or so. If you weren’t enjoying the snow and have been dying to know what winter in Schroon Lake looks like, we’ve shared some of our favorite photos that our very own Tony Kostecki’s husband Javier took!

Since we’re sharing with each other, we hope we can persuade you alumni to share yourselves with us and join our brand-spanking-new alumni association! To start your year off humbly, give back to the colony, and hence the future Young Artists that will someday blossom in the same soil that helped nourish you. We all know how every little bit counts, or else we wouldn’t have been lucky enough to savor your songs here for a summer (or 5). If you aren’t an alum, we hope you’ll think about a Seagle gift card for that belated holiday gift or upcoming family member’s birthday. Season tickets are now on sale for the upcoming season, and nothing says appreciation like the gift of live opera and musical theatre!  And guess what, this year you can buy your seasons tickets online and even choose your seats in advance.  Check it out!

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