the little OPERA theatre of ny presents Livestream Pop-Up Concert Mozart & Friends

The little OPERA theatre of ny (LOTNY) presents Mozart & Friends, a livestream pop-up concert on Thursday, July 9, 2020 at 7:30pm from St. John’s in the Village. The concert will be available to stream from any device-phone, tablet, computer, TV-or, if you miss that live feeling of being in the room together and want a new, immersive way to experience performances, Musae can send you a VR headset along with your ticket purchase. Tickets are $5 – $50 and can be purchased online at www.musae.me/lotny/experiences/779/mozart-%2526-friends. For more details, please visit www.lotny.org.

Mozart & Friends spotlights several arias from little OPERA’s postponed production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s The Shepherd King in a newly commissioned singing translation from Mark Herman and Ronnie Apter, based upon the libretto by Pietro Metastasio. 

The livestreamed performance features tenors Kameron Ghanavati, Rufus Müller,and mezzo-soprano Heather Johnson, with instrumentalists Elliot Figg(Harpsichord, Music Director), Catherine Miller (Piano), Manami Mizumoto(Violin), and Sydney ZumMallen (Cello).

In addition to the selections from Mozart’s opera, there will be music of George Frideric Handel from his oratorio Jephtha and his opera Xerxes. There will also be a bonus Mozart aria, as well as instrumental trios from Jean-Philippe Rameau and Chevalier de Saint-Georges.

About the Musicians
Tenor Kameron Ghanavati is a native of Ocean City, NJ and is an active performer in both the choral and opera scenes and is praised for his stylistic versatility. He studied with renowned tenor Robert Swensen while at Eastman School of Music and developed a passion for both Baroque and New Music during his studies. Kameron has premiered new works with Opera Ithaca, Eastman School of Music, Opera Southwest, and the touring ensemble “Choral Chameleon”. He has also been part of various projects that uncover rarely performed works in the operatic oeuvre. When not on the stage, Kameron remains as an advocate for musical outreach in the community and as a voice teacher. 

This season Heather Johnson makes her Austin Opera debut as Jan in Joby Talbot’s Everest. She will also perform Fierce Grace: Jeannette Rankin with NOVA Chamber Music, Robert Cohen’s Alzheimer’s Stories at Carnegie Hall as well as Mahler’s Das Knaben Wunderhorn with the Wintergreen Festival. Recent engagements include Despina in Cosi fan Tutte with Mill City Summer Opera, Honegger’s Kind David with New York Choral Society, Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the Berkshire Choral International, Dinah in Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti with Boston Lyric Opera, Laura in Luisa Miller at the Metropolitan Opera, La Musica, La Messaggera and La Speranza in the U.S. stage premiere of Respighi’s realization of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo with Chautauqua Opera, the title role in Rossini’s Tancredi with Baltimore Concert Opera and Opera Southwest, Jo in Adamo’s Little Women with Madison Opera, Baba the Turk in The Rake’s Progress and the title role of Lizzie Borden both with Boston Lyric Opera. In 2012, Ms. Johnson made her house debut at the Metropolitan Opera as a Flower Maiden in Parsifal. Ms. Johnson performed in the world premieres of The Long Walk by Jeremy Howard Beck with Opera Saratoga, Mark Adamo’s Becoming Santa Claus with The Dallas Opera, and Fierce Grace: Jeannette Rankin, a song cycle commissioned by OPERA America and performed at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Rufus Müller is a sought-after tenor who has performed internationally in operas, oratorios, and recitals. He performed the world premiere of Jonathan Miller’s acclaimed production of the St. Matthew Passion, which was broadcast on BBC TV and recorded for the United label; he repeated the role in three revivals of the production at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. 

Elliot Figg (Music Director, Harpsichord) returns as music director and harpsichordist for his third opera with LOTNY, after the 2016 U.S. premiere of Chevalier de St. Georges’ L’Amant Anonyme, and the 2018 production of Hasse’s Piramo e Tisbe. Other recent engagements include: Conductor and harpsichordist for Death of Classical’s production of Dido and Aeneas in the catacombs of Green-Wood Cemetery; Deputy Music Director and harpsichordist for Farinelli and the King on Broadway; assistant conductor and harpsichordist for Vivaldi’s Farnace and Cavalli’s Veremonda, both with Spoleto Festival USA; and assistant conductor and harpsichordist for Dido and Aeneas with L.A. Opera. In 2020, Elliot tours as duo recital partner with violinist Monica Huggett, performing Bach’s Obbligato Sonatas for violin and harpsichord. Elliot is an active member of several New York-based early music and contemporary ensembles, including New Vintage Baroque, ACRONYM, and Ruckus. He is a graduate of the Historical Performance Program at The Juilliard School where he studied harpsichord with Kenneth Weiss. At the Yale School of Music, Elliot studied with Arthur Haas. Having received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Music Composition from the University of North Texas, Elliot studied composition with Cindy McTee and Joseph Klein, as well as harpsichord with Lenora McCroskey.

Catherine Miller (Associate Music Director, Piano) enjoys an active career in New York as accompanist for voice recitals, master classes and auditions. She has worked at the Mannes College of Music in the College, Extension and Preparatory divisions, playing for lessons, juries, recitals, opera workshops and song literature classes. Venues for NYC performances, in collaboration with singers and instrumentalists, have included Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, the Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center, the Renee Weiler Concert Hall at Greenwich House, and Saint Peter’s Church. Ms. Miller was music director for LOTNY’s inaugural concert Gardens of Disguise at the Kosciusko Foundation; she also led THE BOHEMIANS at Socrates Sculpture Park, THE MOTHER OF US ALL at The Box, and New Voices at the Kosciusko Foundation. A native of Kansas City, where she received her undergraduate training at the Conservatory of Music/UMKC, Catherine has been privileged to coach with pianist Elizabeth Rich in New York.

New York native Manami Mizumoto started her lifelong relationship with music at age 3 on the violin. Early exposure to chamber music sparked in her a devoted love of collaboration. This led to a fascination with performing contemporary music and working with living composers. In recent years, this has manifested in a songwriting project co-created with Uhuru Quartet and composer Sato Matsui to benefit women’s shelters in NYC. In addition, Manami is passionate about exploring different approaches to music making in history and how that can transform the way modern audiences relate to music of the past. Her driving curiosity is in exploring the dialogue between ancient and contemporary thoughts, and she is equally at home on the baroque violin, modern violin, and electro-acoustic setups with Ableton Live. Manami is a recent graduate of the Juilliard School, where she earned her Masters in Historical Performance and graduated with the Norman Benzaquen Career Advancement Grant.

Sydney ZumMallen (Cello) Winner of the Juilliard School’s inaugural baroque cello concerto competition, Sydney made her solo debut with Juilliard415 at Alice Tully Hall in New York under the direction of Pablo Heras-Cadasado in Fall of 2019. She is a founding member of Fétis, a chamber ensemble that recently brought early music performances to New England and Asia. 

About the Translators

Mark Herman (Translator)is a literary translator, technical translator, chemical engineer, playwright, lyricist, musician, and actor. He writes the “Humor and Translation” column for the online edition of The Chronicle, The Journal of the America Translators Association. 

Ronnie Apter (Translator)is Professor Emerita of English at Central Michigan University (CMU), a published poet, and a translator of poetry. Her awards include the Thomas Wolfe Poetry Award from New York University and the President’ s Award for Outstanding Research and Creative Activity from CMU. 

About the little OPERA theatre of ny 
Founded in 2004, the little OPERA theatre of ny (LOTNY) recently presented the New York premiere of Johann Adolf Hasse’s Piramo e Tisbe at Baruch Performing Arts Center in collaboration with New Vintage Baroque. The production received wide critical acclaim, heralded by Opera News as “superlative [and] an excellent and irrefutable case for programming this rare work, [with] indelible performances that should count among the finest and most complete interpretations heard in New York this season.” In the same season, LOTNY presented the New York premiere of Adrienne Danrich’s one woman show, This Little Light of Mine: The Stories of Marian Anderson and Leontyne Price,as part of the 2018 New York Opera Fest.  Other recent productions include the New York premiere of Carlisle Floyd’s Prince of Players (2017 at The Kaye Playhouse), praised by The New York Times as “well made and stylish” and the U.S. premiere of Chevalier de Saint-George’s L’Amant Anonym (2016 at 59E59 Theaters). Past seasons have included Floyd’s Slow Dusk & Markheim, Rossini’s Opportunity Makes the Theif, a double-bill of Gustav Holst’s The Wandering Scholar and Sāvitri, the U.S. premiere of César Cui’s A Feast in the Time of the Plague, presented with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mozart and Salieri, and the Virgil Thompson/Gertrude Stein opera The Mother of Us All. LOTNY commissioned and performed Inessa Zaretsky’s Man in a Black Coat as part of Target Margin’s Last Futurist Lab at The Bushwick Starr, and presented The Bohemians, a concert of Puccini’s music as part of the city-wide September Concert for 9/11. www.lotny.org.

About Arts at St. John’s in the Village
In addition to the varied program of music presented liturgically, St John’s enjoys a wealth of music and other arts presented in concert, recital, and exhibition. Usually presenting between sixteen and twenty concerts each month, St John’s is one of the most musically active churches in Manhattan. During the present COVID-19 pandemic, concerts and plays are presented online only.

About Musae
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