The Pillar – Luna Pearl Woolf

OPERA-L: The Washington Chorus “New Music for a New Age” features the fabulous music of Luna Pearl Woolf

…The final work was indeed the highlight of the afternoon with a semi-world premiere of Ms. Woolf’s Opera, The Pillar with libretto by David Van Taylor … all we wanted was more than thirty something minutes!

Oxingale Records

12472551_10153312822265877_8573125744741823225_n-1 March 1, 2016

On Sunday our dear friend, tenor Jonathan Blalock was in town as a soloist with the Washington Chorus at the National Presbyterian Church just up the street from our home, and we had to attend. The fact that the program was dedicated to new music and specifically the works of composer, Luna Pearl Woolf, who just had such a huge success with her world premiere of BETTER GODS at Wash Natl Opera made it even more of a treat.

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The New York Times, ArtsBeat: Opera America Names Eight Grant Winners

OXINGALE MUSIC

April 2, 2014

Late last year, Opera America set out to encourage women composers to write new operas, and offered incentives, by way of a two-year grant program, underwritten by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation. The organization announced the first group of recipients of its Opera Grants for Female Composers on Tuesday. Eight composers, and their proposed projects, were chosen from among 112 eligible applicants. Each will receive a $12,500 grant to help develop her opera.

The winner composers (and projects) are Anna Clyne (“As Sudden Shut”); Michelle DiBucci (“Charlotte Salomon: Death and the Painter”); Laura Kaminsky (“As One”); Kristin Kuster (“Old Presque Isle”); Anne LeBaron (“Psyche & Delia”); Fang Man (“Golden Lily”); Sheila Silver (“A Thousand Splendid Suns”); and Luna Pearl Woolf (“The Pillar”).

The adjudication panel included the vocal coach Susan Ashbaker; the composers Douglas Cuomo and David T. Little; the mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer; and the librettist…

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The Washington Post: Washington Chorus makes splendid theater out of Luna Pearl Woolf’s works

Oxingale Records

Massachusetts-born composer Luna Pearl Woolf returned to Washington on Sunday for a concert devoted to her music: two chamber works, a semi-operatic piece and excerpts from an upcoming opera. Woolf’s stature has been growing significantly in the world of new music. All four compositions in Sunday’s concert pushed the dramatic parameters of soprano and chorus — voices often forced to the extreme. Likewise, cellist Matt Haimovitz, Woolf’s husband, had many chances to shine in expressive wizardry as an accompanist to the singing and sometimes even as a protagonist. As part of the series New Music for a New Age, the Washington Chorus was directed by Julian Wachner, whose pungent conducting brought equally pungent results from the performers.

Soprano Marnie Breckenridge has sung everything from soloist in Johannes Brahms’s German Requiem to La Princesse in Philip Glass’s “Orphée.” In Sunday’s “Odas de…

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February 29, 2016