Jacqueline

Award-winning composer Luna Pearl Woolf has long used her evocative voice to advocate for social and political change. Her work has been praised as “brilliant … profoundly moving” (Opera Going Toronto) for its “psychological nuances and emotional depth” (NY Times). Her dramatic works are championed by major opera houses and international performing artists.

Woolf’s oratorio Number Our Days, with concept and libretto by David Van Taylor, was commissioned and premiered by PAC NYC in its inaugural 2023-2024 season, receiving a thunderous response: “extraordinary, completely original…new and electrifying,” “death-affirming, life-inciting,” “elegiac, funny, haunting…poetic, and utterly unique.”

Canada’s CBC Music named the JUNO award-nominated recording Vagues et Ombres including Woolf’s 2022 work, Contact, as their #1 Classical Album of the year; and her 2021 composer-portrait album, LUNA PEARL WOOLF: Fire and Flood (Pentatone Oxingale Series) was nominated for a GRAMMY Award.

Woolf’s opera Jacqueline, about legendary cellist Jacqueline du Pré, with a libretto by Royce Vavrek, commissioned and premiered by Tapestry Opera, was hailed as an “extraordinary piece, one that deserves an unquestioned place in the 21st-century canon” (The Globe and Mail). Its 2020 premiere garnered five nominations and a win in Toronto’s prestigious Dora Awards.

Woolf mentors new opera creators in her work with Montreal’s Musique 3 Femmes, and teaches about the intersection of text and music at institutions such as the National Theater School of Canada and McGill University. She is co-founder of Oxingale Productions, a ground-breaking record label and music publisher supporting new music by lyrical and innovative contemporary composers.

A dual Canadian-American citizen, Woolf was born Western Massachusetts and lives in Montréal, Quebec.

Royce Vavrek is an Alberta-born librettist and lyricist who has been called “the indie Hofmannsthal” (The New Yorker) and “one of the most celebrated and sought after librettists in the world” (CBC Radio). His opera “Angel’s Bone” with composer Du Yun was awarded the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Music. Among his many collaborations include operas with Missy Mazzoli (“Song from the Uproar”, “Breaking the Waves”, “Proving Up”, “The Listeners”), David T. Little (“Dog Days”, “Vinkensport, or The Finch Opera”, “JFK”), Mikael Karlsson (“Melancholia”), Paola Prestini (“Silent Light”, “The Old Man and the Sea”), and Ricky Ian Gordon (“27”, “The House Without a Christmas Tree”). Royce holds a BFA in Filmmaking and Creative Writing from Concordia University and an MFA in Musical Theater Writing from NYU.  He is an alum of American Lyric Theater’s Composer Librettist Development Program.

Acclaimed soprano and actor Marnie Breckenridge is known for her “commanding voice with a splendid high register” (Opera News), “lyrical poignancy and dramatic power…a young Meryl Streep” (Chicago Tribune), “bell-like ring over an enormous range and personality spilling from every note” (The Globe and Mail), “lovely soprano” voice (The New York Times), is captivating international audiences in a diverse range of roles from the Baroque to Modern. A favourite among some of the most gifted composers of our time, she has sung lead roles in 8 world premieres of award-winning new operas and countless art songs/recordings. Several of her favourite contemporary works include Mother in DOG DAYS by David T. Little (LA Opera, Ft. Worth, Prototype), Ruth in Luna Pearl Woolf’s, THE PILLAR (Washington Chorus), Sierva Maria in Peter Eötvös’s LOVE AND OTHER DEMONS (Glyndebourne), La Princesse in Philip Glass’ ORPHÉE, title role in Milhaud’s MÉDÉE, Margarita Xirgu in AINADAMAR (Opera Parallèle), and as Cunegonde in CANDIDE (English National Opera).

She received the 2020 DORA award for “Outstanding Performance by an Individual in an Opera” in Woolf’s JACQUELINE (Tapestry Opera). Recent song albums include David Conte’s Everyone Sang, Herschel Garfein’s, The Layers and Mortality Mansions, Henry Mollicone’s There Is Another Sky, Robert Paterson’s Summer Songs and In Real Life, Richard Aldag’s Arab Love Songs (and several others) as well as her self-produced Holiday Album, Happy Golden Days on all streaming platforms.

She is a featured soloist on Dmitri Hvorostovsky’s Heroes & Villains and New World Records’ Victor Herbert Collected Songs and portrayed the role of Kathie in Gordon Getty’s feature film of the opera Goodbye, Mr. Chips.

Renowned as a musical pioneer, multi-Grammy-nominated cellist Matt Haimovitz is praised by The New York Times as a “ferociously talented cellist who brings his megawatt sound and uncommon expressive gifts to a vast variety of styles” and by The New Yorker as “remarkable virtuoso” who “never turns in a predictable performance.” He brings a fresh ear to familiar repertoire, champions new music, initiates groundbreaking collaborations and creates innovative recording projects. In addition to his touring schedule, Haimovitz mentors an award-winning studio of young cellists at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University in Montreal. He is the first-ever John Cage Fellow at The New School’s Mannes School of Music in New York City.

Haimovitz made his debut in 1984, at the age of 13, as a soloist with Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic. He has gone on to perform on the world’s most esteemed stages with such orchestras and conductors as the Berlin Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic with Zubin Mehta, the English Chamber Orchestra with Daniel Barenboim, the Boston Symphony Orchestra with Leonard Slatkin, and the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal with Kent Nagano. His latest endeavour, THE PRIMAVERA PROJECT, encompasses 81 new commissions from a diverse intersection of North American communities and featured in the most recent 59th Venice Biennale Arte.

Making his first recording at 17 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Haimovitz’s recording career encompasses more than 30 years of award-winning work on Deutsche Grammophon (Universal), Oxingale Records, and the PENTATONE Oxingale Series. His honours include the Trailblazer Award from the American Music Center, the Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Grand Prix du Disque, and the Premio Internazionale “Accademia Musicale Chigiana.” He studied with Leonard Rose at The Juilliard School and graduated magna cum laude with the highest honours from Harvard University. Haimovitz plays a Venetian cello made in 1710 by Matteo Gofriller.

matthaimovitz.com

Michael Hidetoshi Mori is the General Director and Artistic Director of Tapestry Opera and a freelance opera director based in Toronto, Canada. Michael has won Canada’s highest award for outstanding direction in opera twice, has received accolades as a recording artist and film director, and developed and directed Nicole Lizée and Nicolas Billon’s R.U.R., a Torrent of Light which won the MCANA 2023 Best New Opera (first time for a Canadian work), and most recently became the youngest recipient of Opera Canada’s Ruby Award for his co-creation of Women in Musical Leadership with co-awardee Jaime Martino. Michael is also the past chair of the Association for Opera in Canada and a board member of Opera America.

Some opera and music theatre collaborative projects that Michael has piloted include working with the punk rock band Fucked Up on Metallurgy, The Ontario College of Art and Design to create cue-able collaboratively developed wearable tech for the robot-opera R.U.R. a torrent of light, Persian Classical musicians and a Farsi rapper for the opera Forbidden, 10+ Indigenous artists and elders for the collaborative creation of Shanawdithit, giving voice back to the last living Beothuk (the first full Indigenous genocide in North America), and creating the Opera Writers Room during the pandemic to create S.O.S. aka Sketch Opera Shorts with a team of writers, composers, singers, and pianists exchanging roles fluidly. Michael has led Tapestry Opera as Artistic Director since 2014, helping commission and premiere over 15 major Canadian works.

Camellia is a set and costume designer for theatre, opera, dance and site-specific performance installations. Recent designs for opera include Bremen Town Musicians and Operation Superpower (Canadian Opera Company School Tours), Macbeth (Minnesota Opera), Marilyn Forever (Aventa Ensmeble), Carmen and The Tales of Hoffman (Edmonton Opera), Maria Stuarda (Pacific Opera Victoria), The Lighthouse (Boston Lyric Opera), Pélleas et Mélisande, Turn of the Screw and La Bohéme (Against the Grain), Giiwedin (Native Earth), and The Shadow (Tapestry New Opera). Recent designs for theatre include collaborations Tarragon Theatre, The Shaw Festival, The Stratford Festival, and Cahoots Theatre Projects. She has received six Dora Mavor Moore Awards, a Sterling Award, a Chalmers Award Grant, Siminovitch Protégé Prize, 2011 European Opera Directing Third Prize Team, and the 2016 Virginia & Myrtle Cooper Award for costume design. Upcoming plans include set and costume designs for The Rape of Lucretia (Banff/AtG), and Simon Boccanegra (POV).

Originally from Portland, Solomon has created original works in drama, opera, dance, and music across the U.S., Canada, Dominican Republic, Germany, Greece, Italy, Russia, and Slovenia. Highlights include Otello (Festspielhaus Baden Baden, Germany); Il Trovatore (Teatro Comunale di Bologna and Teatro Regio di Parma, Italy); Oedipus (Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus, Greece; Ancient Theatre of Pompeii, Teatro Olimpico di Vicenza, and Teatro Mercadante di Napoli, Italy) all with Robert Wilson; Macbeth (directed by John Doyle at Classic Stage Company, NYC); The Shape of Things (created by Carrie Mae Weems at the Park Avenue Armory, NYC); Duat (Soho Rep, NYC); and Men on Boats (World Premiere: Playwrights Horizons/Clubbed Thumb, NYC).

Solomon’s work in dance, dance/theatre and avant-garde music includes original full-length pieces with Alethea Adsitt, Jennifer Archibald, Jonah Bokaer, Christine Bonansea, Joshua Beamish/MOVE, Maria Chavez, Ximena Garnica/Leimay, Lane Gifford, Invisible Anatomy, LoudHound Movement, Martha Graham Dance Company, Ofelia Loret de Mola, Patrick Lovejoy, Belinda McGuire, Stefanie Nelson, Patricia Noworol, The Nerve Tank (as resident designer), Jennifer Harrison Newman, Jen Shyu, Waxfactory, and four major works as associate set designer with Bill T. Jones.

Solomon was the associate lighting designer on the Broadway production of Jitney and its national tour, which earned lighting designer Jane Cox a tony nomination. Other associate credits include two seasons at the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy (with AJ Weissbard); the Holland Festival in Amsterdam (for Tyler Micoleau); and at Minnesota Opera (with Steve TenEyck) among many others.

With students, Solomon served as a guest artist with Bard, Barnard, Connecticut College, City College, Columbia, DeSales, East Stroudsburg, Fordham, NYU/Tisch, The New School, Princeton, University of the Arts, University of Rochester, Quinnipiac, Willamette, and Yale. He is Assistant Professor of Scenic/Lighting Design at Portland State University.

He holds a BFA from Ithaca College and an MFA from the Yale School of Drama, where he was a Stanley R. McCandless Fellow and a George Harrison Senie Scholar.

The music of composer Benton Roark (he/him) has been described as “visionary” (The Vancouver Sun), “ardent and soaring” (The National Post), and “an experience of deep and darkling beauty” (The Austin Chronicle). In recent years much of his work has focused on new opera, with full productions including Tapestry Opera’s Augmented Opera (“gorgeous Straussian vocal writing,” The Globe and Mail) and Bandits in the Valley (Dora Mavor Moore award nominee, 2018), Vancouver Pro Musica/Tomoe Arts’ Shadow Catch (“an evocative score” The Bulletin), and Fugue Theatre’s Off Leash (“one of the most unique theatrical experiences currently on Vancouver stages” Vancity Buzz). Roark has also enjoyed acclaim as a bandleader and songwriter with projects such as The Benton Roark Band, Rollaway (“backwoods choir elegance” The Georgia Straight), and Arkora (“the standout event of Vancouver’s spring music season” Vancouver Observer), whose Songs from the Rainshadow’s Edge earned him a 2016 WCMA nomination for Composition of the Year. Current projects include new opera work slated for premiere at the Chan Centre in November 2024 (Eurydice Fragments, re:Naissance Opera), and recording projects The Sign of Jonas (Mother Country, Laughing Heart Records), and Transfigured Light (Arkora, Redshift Records). Roark holds a D.M.A. from the University of British Columbia and has served as Associate Artistic Director of Redshift Music Society and Sound Symposium. He currently serves as Artistic Director of Arkora and makes his home in Toronto.