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Photo ©
Lisa Kohler
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Jake Heggie, Composer & Pianist
Jake Heggie is the
composer of the acclaimed operas Dead Man Walking (libretto: McNally),
Three Decembers (libretto: Scheer), The End of the Affair (libretto:
McDonald), the lyric drama To Hell and Back (libretto: Scheer), and the
musical scene At the Statue of Venus (libretto: McNally). The recipient of a 2005/06 Guggenheim Fellowship, he has also
composed more than 200 songs, as well as concerti, orchestral works and chamber
music. His songs, song cycles and operas are championed internationally by
singers including Frederica von Stade, Susan Graham, Audra McDonald, Kiri Te
Kanawa, Patti LuPone, Isabel Bayrakdarian, Kristin Clayton, Kristine Jepson, Joyce DiDonato,
Joyce Castle, Zheng Cao, and Bryn Terfel. He has collaborated extensively with
conductors Patrick Summers, Nicholas McGegan, John DeMain, Michael Morgan, and
director Leonard Foglia.
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Heggie,
Sister Helen Prejean,
& Terrence McNally
Photo
© Elaine Criscione
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Heggie is
currently at work on an epic opera based on Melville’s Moby-Dick with
librettist Gene Scheer, commissioned by Dallas Opera for its inaugural
season in the Winspear Opera House. Scheduled to open on April 30, 2010,
Moby-Dick will star the great Canadian tenor Ben Heppner as Ahab;
Patrick Summers conducts and Leonard Foglia directs. The opera has been
co-commissioned by San Francisco Opera, San Diego Opera and Calgary Opera.
Heggie has also been asked to develop an opera project with playwright
Richard Greenberg for the Metropolitan Opera and Lincoln Center Theatre. |
Dead Man Walking
has been performed more than 100 times since its San Francisco premiere in 2000,
making it one of the most performed of new American operas. In 2007 alone, the
opera was performed more than 50 times internationally, including new
productions in Sweden, Ireland and Australia. Heggie’s operas have been
performed all over the world, including productions at San Francisco Opera, New
York City Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Seattle Opera, Opera Pacific, Cincinnati
Opera, Calgary Opera, Austin Lyric Opera, Madison Opera, Pittsburgh Opera,
Michigan Opera Theatre, Kansas City Opera, State Opera of South Australia, Malmö
Opera, Dresden SemperOper, Theater an der Wien, Theater Hagen, and Opera
Ireland. Dead Man Walking recently received its first university
productions at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and the University of
Nebraska in Lincoln.
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He has been resident
composer for the San Francisco Opera, EOS Orchestra, Vail Valley Music Festival,
and the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival, and has given lectures and master
classes for singers and composers at universities and conservatories that
include the Cincinnati Conservatory, NYU, Bucknell University, DePauw
University, and UCLA, to name a few. He has also been a guest artist at SongFest
in Malibu, the Steans Institute at the Ravinia Festival, and the Grandin
Festival in Cincinnati.
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Frederica Von Stade |
As a
pianist, Heggie often accompanies Frederica von Stade in recital and has
also performed with sopranos Anna Netrebko, Dawn Upshaw, Kristin
Clayton, Nicolle Foland, Melody Moore, Emily Albrink, Marnie
Breckenridge, Laura Anne Ayres, Ann Moss and Leah Partridge; mezzos
Susan Graham, Joyce DiDonato, Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson, Jennifer Larmore,
Margaret Lattimore, Mary Phillips, Catherine Cook, Zheng Cao and Elise
Quagliata; tenors Paul Groves, Nicholas Phan and Thomas Glenn;
countertenor Brian Asawa; baritones Thomas Hampson, Keith Phares, Kyle
Ferrill and Bo Skovhus; and bass Samuel Ramey. Recordings of his work
include For a Look or a Touch (Naxos), Flesh and Stone (Americus/Classical Action), The Deepest
Desire: Joyce DiDonato (Eloquentia), Dead Man Walking (Erato),
The Faces of Love (RCA),
My Native Land (Teldec), and Holy the Firm: Essay for Cello and
Orchestra (Oakland East Bay Symphony with cellist Emil Miland).
Heggie also contributed a song (“The Other Other Woman”) to the musical
Songs From An Unmade Bed, lyrics by Mark Campbell (Ghostlight). |
Among the
composer’s numerous commissions are works for the San Francisco Opera,
Houston Grand Opera (co-commissioned by Madison Opera and Opera Pacific),
Metropolitan Opera with Lincoln Center Theater, Opera Colorado, Ravinia
Festival, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra,
Carnegie Hall, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Oakland East Bay Symphony, Los
Angeles Philharmonic, Louisville Orchestra, New Century Chamber Orchestra,
Chanticleer, Harmida Trio, Camerata Pacifica, San Francisco Girls Chorus,
Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia, University of Kansas at Lawrence,
University of Connecticut at Storrs, Music of Remembrance, Pacifica Chorale,
Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, Music Accord ad individual commissions
from singers Frederica von Stade, Jennifer Larmore, Brian Asawa, Bryn Terfel
and Robert Orth.
Jake Heggie was
born in West Palm Beach, FL, in 1961. From the age of two he was raised in
Ohio and California. His
first composition teacher was the late Ernst Bacon, with whom he studied in
Orinda, CA from 1977 to 1979. After two years of study in Paris, he went to
UCLA where he studied piano with the late Johana Harris and composition with
Roger Bourland, Paul DesMarais and the late David Raksin. He has made his
home in San Francisco since 1993.
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The Official Website of Jake Heggie
This page last updated
01/16/09
© 2009 Bent Pen Music, Inc.