Laura Kaminsky (composer)
“one of the top 35 female composers in classical music” (The Washington Post), frequently addresses issues including sustainability, war, and human rights in her work. “Full of fire as well as ice, (she writes) in an idiom that contrasts dissonance and violence with tonal beauty and meditative reflection. It is strong stuff.” (American Record Guide). With co-librettists Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed she has created the most widely-produced contemporary opera in the U.S., As One (2014), Some Light Emerges (Houston Grand Opera 2017), and Today It Rains (Opera Parallèle/American Opera Projects 2019). Her Piano Quintet, for Ursula Oppens and the Cassatt Quartet, was recently premiered in New York and will soon be recorded along with the Koussevitzky Award-winning Piano Concerto and her Fantasy on an Oppens Performs Kaminsky CD. Her new opera, Hometown to the World, with a libretto by Reed, for a consortium led by Santa Fe and San Francisco Operas, was workshopped at San Francisco Opera. She is the composer mentor for Washington National Opera’s American Opera Initiative and is head of composition at the Conservatory of Music/SUNY Purchase.
Mark Campbell, librettist
Mark Campbell’s work as a librettist is at the forefront of the current contemporary opera scene in this country. The fifteen-plus libretti he has written—and the five new operas he premiered in 2017—demonstrate a versatility in subject matter, style, and tone, an adeptness at creating successful work for both large and intimate venues. The composers with whom he collaborates represent a roster of the most eminent composers in classical music, and include three Pulitzer Prize winners. Mark’s most known work is Silent Night, which received the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Music and is one of the most frequently performed operas in recent history. After its premiere at Minnesota Opera, the work was broadcast on PBS’ Great Performances and continues to be produced by many opera companies around the country. His other successful operas include As One, Later the Same Evening, Volpone, Bastianello/Lucrezia, Manchurian Candidate, The Inspector, Approaching Ali, A Letter to East 11th Street, and most recently, The Shining.
Kimberly Reed, librettist
KIMBERLY REED designed projections for and wrote As One with co-librettist Mark Campbell, composed by Laura Kaminsky. The team then collaborated for Some Light Emerges (Houston Grand Opera) and Today It Rains (Opera Parallèle). A consortium of opera companies, led by Santa Fe and San Francisco Opera, commissioned her to write the libretto for Hometown to the World, again with Kaminsky. Her written work is collected in “The Moth,” a New York Times bestseller. She has held fellowships at NYFA, Yaddo, Squaw Valley Writers Workshop, and the Hermitage. Her documentary film Prodigal Sons premiered at the Telluride Film Festival and garnered 14 international awards. Her documentary Dark Money premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2018. One of Filmmaker magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film,” she has been featured on CNN, NPR, MSNBC, Moth Radio Hour, and the Oprah Winfrey Show.