Juventas 10 Years Celebration Video

Check it out. I made a video with a slide show celebrating Juventas and their success in making it as a professional ensemble for 10 years! Comment if you like it. Thanks!

Review #2: “The Magic Mirror”: Window Into Another World

The Magic Mirror review #2. Here's some quotes:

The Magic Mirror succeeds, most of all, in elegance. Characters move through a sumptuous world, wandering along whirls of purple and blue on the floor, moving through dark woods and bright cottages.

Also:

Still, it’s a beautiful show. The contemporary instrumentals...define a world of sharp edges and deadly consequences. The Magic Mirror unfolds like an eerie dream...always mesmerizing for the audience.

Read the full review here:

“The Magic Mirror”: Window Into Another World

Magic Mirror in the news and pics

Here's a couple pics, comments and articles about The Magic Mirror production this weekend May 30-June 1.

Here is what Steven Lipsitt, the conductor of the Boston Classical Orchestra said about The Magic Mirror:

If you enjoy the operas of Tchaikovsky & Mussorgsky, go see "Magic Mirror" at Boston Center for the Arts. A world premiere by the 26-year-old(!) Polina Nazaykinskaya, it's a grand opera packed into a 65-minute two-act piece in a 100-seat BlackBox theater. Expertly sung, played, & conducted --- a first-class enterprise. (And air-conditioned...) ;>)

hugecity.us named Magic Mirror as a "Top 10 Boston Pick" this week. AND, The New England Theatre Geek ran a nice promo post on the show.  Promo: The Magic Mirror. I hope you can make it.

Thursday, May 30th at 8 p.m.
Friday, May 31st at 8 p.m.
Saturday, June 1st at 3 p.m.
Saturday, June 1st at 8 p.m.
Tickets available here!

BCA Plaza Theatre
539 Tremont Street
Boston, MA

Tickets: $20/ $15
Box Office at 617-933-8600

Magic Mirror Rehearsal Preview and Synopsis

I am sitting in the rehearsal room at the Boston Center for the Arts as I type this entry. Don't worry! I'm not slacking. Lidiya Yankovskaya is working music for The Magic Mirror. In just a second we will launch into a dance call followed by our second full run. Tomorrow is the sitzprob and the beginning of tech week. If you are wondering what this process looks like, take a look at the video below.

My assistant director Joey Frangieh created a short video montage of our rehearsal process. It may not be the fanciest video that you've ever seen, but it shows an insider's perspective of life in the rehearsal room.

Before watching, take a look at the synopsis of the Snow White inspired show below. The story is similar to the one you know, but we've add a few twists. Let me know what you think of the differences in the comments.

Synopsis

Act 1
While attending her newborn baby, Queen Mother, lonely and weak, awaits her husband’s return. Suddenly, a mysterious evil woman sucks the life from Queen Mother and traps her soul into a magical mirror. Upon his return, the King discovers his wife’s body, and he falls into grief. Time passes yet the King languishes only for his wife. In his grief, he hears a beautiful voice. Confused, he believes he hears his wife, but the voice comes from the mysterious woman instead. She gives him a magical potion which forces him to forget his dead wife and, instead, fall madly in love with the new woman. The King marries the woman, creating the Evil Queen. The townspeople gossip about the Evil Queen and her mirror. Daily, the Evil Queen turns to the mirror for reassurance of her beauty and power. Time passes, and, to the Evil Queen’s dismay, the daughter of her husband grows fairer than she. Enraged, the Evil Queen demands the maid Chernyafka murder the Princess. Forced to follow the Evil Queen’s order, Chernyafka plays a game of “hide-and-seek” to lure the Princess away from her engagement party. In the woods, the Princess bargains with Chernyafka to spare her life. Chernyafka succumbs to the Princess’s pleas, cuts the Princess loose, and departs. Lost, the Princess runs deeper into the forest to escape her fate.

Act 2
In town, everyone is searching for the missing Princess. Meanwhile, the Princess, alone in the woods, stumbles upon a house. Unable to find anyone, she decides to clean the messy house and bake a pie in order to win the inhabitants’ favor. Suddenly, seven knights enter the house and the Princess hides only to reveal herself shortly thereafter. The men recognize her, fawn over her, and propose to her. She politely informs the men that she is engaged to her love the Prince Yelisey. Back in the castle the Evil Queen cheerily resumes her daily beauty ritual with her magic mirror. To her surprise the mirror reveals that the Princess is still alive. Infuriated the Evil Queen dresses as an old lady and seeks out the Princess. In the forest, the Evil Queen poisons the Princess with an apple. The knights discover the deceased Princess and place her body in a coffin. Elsewhere, Prince Yelisey continues his search for the Princess. He turns to the Sun, the Moon, and the Wind for aid. The Wind reveals that the Princess lies in a coffin. Devastated, Prince Yelisey bestows one last kiss on the Princess. Upon true love’s kiss, Yelisey restores the Princess’s life. The Evil Queen falls to her death from anger and the destruction of her mirror, and the village rejoices as the Prince and Princess get married.

Magic Mirror in the Newton Patch

Check out this article about my upcoming production The Magic Mirror. It features our King played by Andy Papas.  He sounds great in rehearsal. I hope you can all come see him and the rest of the cast next week, beginning May 30. Get your tix now!

Andy Papas, king in The Magic Mirror

The Magic Mirror

World premiere

Thursday, May 30th at 8 p.m.

Friday, May 31st at 8 p.m.

Saturday, June 1st at 3 p.m.

Saturday, June 1st at 8 p.m.

Purchase tickets

BCA Plaza Theatre

539 Tremont Street

Boston, MA

Summer 2013 Activity

It's gonna be a busy summer, and that's good. I hope you can make it to one or more of my upcoming events. Stay tuned for details as the summer progresses.

Here's the line-up:

The Magic Mirror
World premiere opera by Polina Nazaykinskaya
Erin Huelskamp, director
Lidiya Yankovskaya, music director

May 30-June 1, 2013
BCA Plaza Theatre
Boston, MA


Facing Down Death
Featuring scenes 1-6 of The Ten-Block Walk

Music by Erin Huelskamp
Christie Lee Gibson, director
Nick Place, music director

June 21-23, 2013 at 8 pm
10 Channel Center Street
Fort Point, Boston



Two Gentlemen of Verona
Commonwealth Shakespeare Company's Shakespeare on the Common
Steve Maler, director
Erin Huelskamp, assistant director

Various performances throughout July 2013
Boston Common

Another quote

Here's another quote from an article of Huelskamp yore:


“I founded Juventas with two other young composers who felt there was a flaw in the ‘system’. Instead of ‘whining’ … we decided to take initiative and form an ensemble that focuses on giving amazing performances of music by primarily young, living composers, and to perform this music as repertoire—meaning more than once. Since that time, we have worked diligently to form a community of supporters for our mission. Juventas, as it stands, is the result. I encourage you all to do the same. If you see a problem with the way ensembles, calls-for-scores, competitions, etc., are run … then create something that supports your ideas.”

-Erin Huelskamp, Executive Director & Co-founder, Juventas New Music Ensemble (Boston), post on SCIMEMBERS listserve, 01-MAR-2008. Chamber Music Today “We Are All Illegal Aliens Now: Ageism in Calls-for-Scores and Competitions as Quasi-Immigration Policy?”

Super Powers and Organization

I'm back!  I bet you thought I disappeared...

Life is fast-paced right now.  Between stage directing and keeping up with my composition projects, Juventas, OperaHub, Boston Arts Academy AND Cecilia - well, I feel a bit overwhelmed.  Overwhelmed in a good way.  I feel lucky to be working on so many amazing artistic projects.  Can you believe it!?!  I just wish there were a few more hours in the day, or maybe I could develop super powers like Evie from Out of This World.  I'll just touch my two pointer fingers together, freeze time, and take however long I please doing whatever strikes my fancy.  Ah!  Such a nice fantasy...

Side note - do you think I would age during this frozen time?  That could be a problem.

In the midst of developing my powers, I am trying to organize my website.  My plan is to post some of the interesting news items I received over the past year on my blog.

To begin, here is a review of A Protest received from the Boston Musical Intelligencer back in March of 2009:

Eight Commissioned Works for Women’s Vocal Ensemble Take on Social Protest by Liane Curtis

Erin Huelskamp’s A Protest proved the most memorable and startlingly revelatory work of the evening. Her choice was a Victorian-era poem by Arthur Hugh Clough. The anxiety expressed by a woman who rises to speak her opinion before a hostile assembly unfolds haltingly and in overlapping waves of forward motion, then hesitation. Speech-like declamations spar with sung comments, electrifying the psychological battle. This is the piece I most want to hear again, to parse and savor the interplay of interjections, questions and responses.

Anthology Voices commissioned A Protest  in 2008 and premiered it in March 2009.  Anthology is an amazing performing force; thus, I have a killer recording of the piece. I plan to post said recording to the "Listen" section of my site soon, so check back or join my mailing list.

Juventas New Music Ensemble announces a Call for Chamber Operas

Juventas New Music Ensemble announces a Call for Chamber Operas:
Juventas New Music Ensemble announces the Call for Chamber Operas. One opera will be selected from this call for performance in the Juventas Opera Project 2010 the Cambridge YMCA Theater on Thursday, May 20 through Saturday, May 22 at 8 PM and Sunday, May 23 at 3 PM.

Juventas is seeking Chamber Operas 45 minutes in length or longer scored for vocalists and up to 13 instrumentalists. Additionally, all composers must be age 35 or under as of Janurary 1st of the present year to be eligible for consideration.

Act fast! The application deadline is November 14, 2009.

Details and application instructions are available at http://www.juventasmusic.com/submissions.php. Any additional questions or comments can be directed to info@juventasmusic.com.

Here are a couple images from the Juventas Opera Project 2009:

Juventas Review - Murmors From Limbo

REVIEW by BOSTON THEATER REVIEW

Enjoy!

-E

------

Murmors From Limbo:


Juventas New Music Ensemble, a resident of the Boston Conservatory, offered quite the “mind trip” with it’s fall selection, Murmurs From Limbo: A Musical Exploration Into the Human Mind. The ensemble features young artists in the Boston area and strives to produce and promote composers under the age of 35, but this is not an easy task. Filling an audience for classical works can be hard enough, but add to that a bevy of unheard of composers and the risk of green performers, and you have the potential for a disaster- thank goodness Juventas pulled it off with class and style.

Murmurs From Limbo featured six pieces that could not be any more unique from one another- from classic compositions, to dramatic percussive performance piece, Juventas pushed the envelope, and pushed the boundaries of the audience’s expectations.

Tim Stullman’s Deaf Ears Hear No Crying is a tribute to those who seek justice but go unheard. From the first moment of odd scratching and the plucking of piano strings, it is clear that this is not your average composition, in fact, the piece defines the genre of “new classical music” in its ability to combine the a classic and beautiful orchestration with elements of jarring and otherworldly reality.

Bit of Nostolgia by Matt Boyd and performed by Brian Calhoon was a surprising foray into the inner working of a percussionist’s mind. Seeing each object on the stage as a potential vessel for music, Calhoon moved about the stage playing everything from a paper bag to a handful of plastic chains. In glorious contrast to Stullman’s piece, it worked as a perfect bridge to what I consider to be the most beautiful piece of the night.

Erich Stem’s Revisited filled the auditorium with the rich and beautiful sounds of the East. Inspired by Japanese Shakuhachi music, the three movements of this piece are unique and beautiful. The third movement, inspired by an 18^th century poem by Minezaki Koto, echoed the feeling of poetry with fluid lines and sophisticated nuances.

The second part of the evening started off with the fun, playful The Mind is a Monkey, Swinging From Branch to branch Through the Forest by Ethan Greene. The mouthful of the title is an homage to the text of the Sutra, and the music does it justice- full of movement and a witty repartee between the instruments.

Part didgeridoo, part tuba beat-boxing is the best way to describe the piece that stole the show. Fnugg by Norwegian composer Oystein Baadsvick was an all around crowd-pleaser as performed by tuba genius, John Eliot. The audience could not help to gasp in audible delight as Eliot morphed the homely tuba into an unexpected boom-box of fun. Whoops and hollers followed him off the stage until he had to take a second bow.

The evening of music closed with the title piece of the production, Murmurs from Limbo by Steven Rice. Unfortunately this piece fell a little flat for me (no pun intended). As the title engagement of the night, I was expecting to be blown away, especially with the caliber of music and fun we’d previously experienced, but unfortunately Murmors from Limbo was not my cup of tea. A mish-mashed conglomeration of weird shouting and singing in middle English, odd and ugly dissonant music, and an irritating lack of balance between voices and instruments left me feeling pretty disappointed- the text translations provided did no assist in my understanding help because it was extremely difficult to hear the vocalists sing (or moan/shout/growl). It almost felt like a parody of what someone might do if they were trying to make fun of “modern classical music”. That being said, I did appreciate the fine performance of the orchestra, and what I could hear of singers Thea Lobo and Owen Mcintosh.

It was wonderful to see Juventas staples Michael Sakir and Julia Carey giving their skill to the production, and special congratulations to new associate conductor, Lidiya Yankovskaya for an excellent debut!

The Juventas New Musical Ensemble has a lot of exciting productions coming up throughout the year, and will continue with their spring Opera project. I’m looking forward to seeing what’s in store.



Music Director, Michael Sakir in action
Photo credit: Cayuga Strategies, LLC.