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Late on a November 2011 night in Chicago, I leaned back in my chair and looked out over Lake Michigan from my aerie at the Renaissance after having had drinks with three of my former Chicago pupils. All stand-up, ambitious, talented chaps who've banded together to found the Chicago Composer's Orchestra. Earlier that day, I attended a performance of New York Storiesat the conservatory featuring the Chicago Opera Theater young artists who would play the larger roles in their production the next year of Amelia.

Walter Isaacson's just-published Steve Jobs biography slipped from my hand to the floor as I nodded off. Leaning forward to pick it up and set it on the side table, I opened at random to the page describing how Jobs as a ...

That old canard about why people climb Mount Everest never seemed so applicable to the music world as it did today when I read in The Guardian that someone has decided to actually stage Karlheinz Stockhausen’s insanely unstageable opera, Mittwoch aus Licht. To be blunt, there is no earthly reason that any sane human being would ever attempt such a thing, other than to be able to say that you actually did it.

Perhaps you think I’m overstating the absurd difficulty of bringing this opera to life. Wagner’s Ring cycle, after all, requires some pretty crazy special effects, and the stuff that the Met Opera puts on a stage in New York every night frequently approaches the level of actual magic in terms of logistical ...

Edythe Bates Old and Moores Opera House at the University of Houston presents the first major revival of my opera AMELIA, with libretto by Gardner McFall and story by Stephen Wadsworth first commissioned and premiered by Seattle Opera in 2010. The performances are scheduled for January 26, 27, and 29. The stage director is Buck Ross and the conductor is Brett Mitchell. The fine coach / accompanists are Katherine Cicson and Yanira Soria. I have made a new 25-player orchestration that will make the opera accessible to smaller opera companies. The production also features projections as the major scenic element, making AMELIA more economical to stage. 

I'm delighted to have attended several staging rehearsals. Working with the talented ...

Bang on a Can celebrates turning 25 with a very special gift: Download the new album for FREE during the first 25 days of January in exchange for a Bang on a Can memory at www.bangonacan25.org.

The Bang on a Can All-Stars have recorded their first studio album in five years, for release on Bang on a Can’s Cantaloupe Music in 2012. The album, Big Beautiful Dark and Scary, is also the first to include the All-Stars’ current line-up: Ashley Bathgate, cello; Robert Black, bass; Vicky Chow, piano; David Cossin, percussion; Mark Stewart, electric guitar; and Evan Ziporyn, clarinets. In celebration of its 25th birthday, Bang on a Can is giving a very special gift to the public. The complete, double album is available to download for ...

The Darkling opera CD is available here from Albany Records. Read on for an introduction from the opera’s composer, Stefan Weisman.

I remember the first time I composed music. I was a freshman at Bard College, where I intended to be a film major. However, that also seemed to be the plan for a sizeable percentage of the incoming class and I couldn’t get into the courses I wanted. I’d been a violinist since grade school, and had a love of classical music, so it felt natural for me to seek out a music course to fill out my schedule. Bard had no orchestras then, but it did have a composition course that sounded interesting. I noticed that the course required the “permission of the instructor,” so I picked up the ...

American Opera Projects (AOP) explores the outer edges of the operatic form with Darkling, an experimental opera- theatre work with original music composed by Stefan Weisman and libretto by Anna Rabinowitz.

Spanning the decades from the 1930’s to the post-World War period, Darkling is a remarkable story – both poignant and humorous – of love, loss, calamity and hope. Past and present blur, characters are swept along by the great forces of history and lives are bowed and buffeted in this uniquely moving and captivating work. "Brave and sensitive" (The New York Times), Darkling uses opera, avant-garde theatre, vaudeville and cutting edge technology to create “an unlikely collaboration of Wagner, Sally Bowles and ...