Page 41 - Liverpool Philharmonic 22-23 Season Coverage Book

Chicago Opera Theater

I was really keen to include this organisation in Gramophone’s Season Preview, the
first time they’ve been listed. 2023 will mark COT’s 50th birthday year, and there’s

reason to celebrate… COT place an emphasis on new work, having already
presented 78 Chicago premieres; in 2018, it launched the Vanguard Initiative, which

gives emerging opera composers the chance to be mentored by composer Jake
Heggie, observe rehearsals and write a 60-90 minute chamber opera for public

performance. New opera to watch out for in the 2022/23 Season includes the world
premiere of The Life And Death(s) of Alan Turing, with music by Justine F Chen and
a libretto by David Simpatico.

That work will be conducted by COT’s inspiring Music Director, Lidiya Yankovskaya.

She is one of only two women to work as Music Director at a multimillion-dollar opera
company in the US, and is a committed advocate to growing the operatic canon; she

has conducted 17 operatic world premieres, including work by Jake Heggie and Joby
Talbot. To top it off, in 2016 she set up the Refugee Orchestra Project, which unites
refugee musicians to highlight the important role refugees play in society. She’ll be in

the UK, too, making her ENO debut with Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs in
April and May 2023. One to watch.

Emmanuel Séjourné – Concerto No 1 for Marimba and Strings, 3rd mvt

Studio Orchestra / Lidiya Yankovskaya cond / Logan Fox mar

LA Opera

The only known surviving American slave autobiography written in Arabic inspires
Omar; the opera tells the true story of the West African man who was carried on a

slave ship to South Carolina, and who wrote about his experiences in an
autobiography in 1831. Its operatic retelling premiered at the Spoleto Festival, and
here receives its first outing on the West Coast. Country/blues singer Rhiannon

Giddens and film composer Michael Abels wrote the score; Giddens would sit with
the banjo or fiddle and work out an entire scene, for Abels to then add harmonies

and orchestration.

Giddens is another compelling figure who blurs boundaries; she studied opera at the
Oberlin Conservatory, has competed in Scottish traditional music contests, has sung