West Coast premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon's "Green Sneakers" creating media buzz

Cellist Kathyrn Bates Williams and Barihunk Jesse Blumberg (Photo by Michael Colbruno)

The West Coast premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon's "Green Sneakers" has created quite a media buzz before its one-night only performance tonight at Fort Mason's Southside Theater in San Francisco. The Jewish Weekly, Bay Area Reporter and San Francisco Chronicle all named it as one of their top theater picks for the week.

The Advocate ran a lengthy interview with Ricky Ian Gordon today, who wrote the mini-opera as a way of dealing with the loss of his lover Jeffrey Grossi to AIDS in 1996. Gordon told the Advocate, "The world is so different now than it was when Jeffery died in 1996. Young people today missed seeing what it was really like at the height of the AIDS crisis so for them they think it’s OK because you just get to take a few pills all the time. Today, HIV is romanticized in a way because you get to be like that character in Rent, but young people need to know that there’s nothing romantic about it."

You can read the entire interview HERE.

Jesse Blumberg and the Del Sol Quartet (Photo by Michael Colbruno)

The San Francisco Examiner hailed Gordon as a natural successor to Stephen Sondheim along with Jason Robert Brown, Adam Guettel and John Michael LaChiusa. You can read the entire article HERE. San Francisco's KDFC radio also aired an interview with the composer.

Green Sneakers, which is broken into nineteen songs and runs about 80 minutes, is being directed by one of operas most exciting young talents John de los Santos. The theatrical song cycle was written for Baritone, String Quartet, and Empty Chair, with a libretto by the composer. It premiered on July 15, 2008 in Vail, Colorado and has had a number of subsequent performances since, mostly with Blumberg. Remarkably, it had never been performed in the two cities most impacted by AIDS - New York City and San Francisco. This performance and an upcoming show at Lincoln Center on April 6th finally bring this important piece to the audiences most touched by the epidemic. 

Jesse Blumberg in rehearsal for Green Sneakers in San Francisco (Photo by Michael Colbruno)

Tickets for the February 19th performance are available at the Fort Mason website. Tickets for the New York show are part of the American Songbook series at Lincoln Center and available HERE.

A complete photo album from the San Francisco rehearsals is available HERE. 

Orozco Hailed in Piazolla's "Maria de Buenos Aires"

Luis Alejandro Orozco

One more reason that we love our Reader Submissions is that we end up following careers as they breakthrough with major successes. The latest example is the hunky Luis Alejandro Orozco who thrived in a production of Astor Piazolla's "Maria de Buenos Aires" by the gifted young director John De Los Santos.

The Lexington Herald-Leader wrote:

In the part of the Payador, Maria’s lover and would-be savior, Luis Alejandro Orozco wields his strong, plangent baritone voice with tender artistry and also cuts a figure of rare physical beauty. His interaction with the utility players, effectively undertaken by Andrew McKinnon, Alexis Slocum and Josh Stone, fairly bristle with dramatic truth.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2013/02/02/2500437/review-with-maria-lexington-philharmonic.html#storylink=cpy#storylink=cpy

You can read the entire review online. 

There are performance remaining today and tomorrow and tickets are available online. Orozco will next perform the role at the Florida Grand Opera on Thursday March 21th, 22nd, 23rd and 24th. He can next be seen as Le Podestat in Bizet's rarely performed opérette Le Docteur Miracle at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music on February 15th - 17th. He will also cover the role of Young Emile in the new Terence Blanchard opera featuring fellowing barihunk Aubrey Allicock, which we've posted previously.

You can hear audio samples of Luis Alejandro Orozco on his website.  

Director John De Los Santos will be joining forces with yet another barihunk when he directs the West Coast premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon's "Green Sneakers." If you're anywhere near the San Francisco Bay Area, you want want to miss this "one night only" performance featuring Jesse Blumberg in Gordon's masterful mini-opera. Tickets are available online at the Fort Mason box office.

Baritones with String Quartet in San Francisco and New York explore grief and loss

Nathan Gunn & Jesse Blumberg

Fans of vocal music accompanied by string quartet are in luck on both coasts. At New York's Zankel Hall, on February 19th Nathan the indefatigable Nathan Gunn will perform the world-premiere of Jennifer Higdon's chamber version of "Barnyard Bloom."

Based on Walt Whitman's "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" the piece explores a wide range of grief and loss. Gunn will also perform Samuel Barber's famous “Dover Beach" which is also accompanied by string quartet. Gunn will also be joined by his wife Julie Gunn for a selection of songs in English by Butterworth, Quilter, Ives, Bowles, and Ben Moore.

Nathan Gunn can next be seen in Rossini's Le Comte d'Ory at the Metropolitan Opera opening February 2nd. 

Across the country on the same date, Jesse Blumberg will also explore the topic of grief and loss in Ricky Ian Gordon's masterful 80-minute mini-opera "Green Sneakers." The work was written as a way for Gordon to find solace from the grief of losing his partner, Jeffrey Grossi, to AIDS, and following their last few months together. Blumberg, who created the piece, joins San Francisco's exciting Del Sol Quartet in this performance. 

 

Jesse Blumberg performs the epilogue to Green Sneakers:

 

 

The work will be performed at the Southside Theater at Fort Mason in San Francisco on February 19th. Seating is limited, so purchase tickets today. The performance will be directed by the talented young director John De Los Santos.

 

Fans of Blumberg in New York are in luck, as Green Sneakers will be featured as part of Lincoln Center Presents on April 6th at the Kaplan Penthouse. Tickets are available online. , who we named the top opera director in 2010. If you can't wait that long, check him out at the New York Festival of Song, where he'll join soprano Stacey Tappan in music by Ricky Ian Gordon, Kevin Puts, Christopher Theofanidis and others.