American Modern Opera Company: COUNTERTENOR (with Anthony Roth Costanzo)
SOLD OUT
- Anthony Roth Costanzo, countertenor
- Amir Hoshang Farsi, flute
- Paul Wonjin Cho, clarinet, bass clarinet, & basset horn
- Yasmina Spiegelberg, clarinet & bass clarinet
- Alex Bender, trumpet
- Nicolee Kuester, French horn
- Burt Mason, trombone
- David Cossin, percussion
- Chelsea Lane, harp
- Landon Wilson, keyboards
- Dušan Balarin, theorbo, lute, & electric guitar
- Keir GoGwilt, violin
- Miranda Cuckson, violin & viola
- Colin Brookes, viola
- Coleman Itzkoff, cello
- Eleonore Oppenheim, double bass
- Sissel Tolaas, speaker
- Dan Schlosberg, keyboards & conductor
Philip Glass — Selected works
Osvaldo Golijov — Selected works
Claudio Monteverdi — Selected works
Thomas Morley — Selected works
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — Selected works
Antonio Vivaldi — Selected works
Various — Selected works
From Mickey Mouse to Michael Jackson, and traditional Hawaiian song to Kabuki, the falsetto sound is deeply ingrained within our global consciousness. But what does it evoke, and what does it express? This synesthetic concert experience blends the intangibility of the countertenor voice with the invisibility of smell molecules. It explores how unseen elements––sound and smell––can provoke emotion and imprint long-lasting memories.
In collaboration with chemist, linguist, and artist Sissel Tolaas, countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo delves into both the wide-ranging cultural and an intimate personal history of falsetto. Through the use of smell, collective memories are created during the performance, activated in tandem with the sound of the voice. This live, 75-minute show features an evocative musical program, carefully woven together using abstract smell molecules to encode distinct aspects of the "COUNTERTENOR."
Costanzo is joined by an ensemble of 15 musicians, performing a program spanning over 400 years of music from the late Renaissance to the present, including pieces by John Dowland, Philip Glass, Osvaldo Golijov, Claudio Monteverdi, Thomas Morley, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Klaus Nomi, Frankie Valli, Antonio Vivaldi, and more, with arrangements by Dan Schlosberg.
Doors open at 6:30pm.
Note: This performance contains smell experiences.
About Anthony Roth Costanzo, countertenor
"Vocally brilliant and dramatically fearless" – The New York Times
Countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo began performing professionally at the age of 11 and has since appeared in opera, concert, recital, film, and on Broadway. He is a Grammy nominee, a recipient of the 2020 Beverly Sills Award from the Metropolitan Opera, a winner of the 2020 Opera News Award, and Musical America's 2019 Vocalist of the Year.
About Amir Hoshang Farsi, flute
About Paul Wonjin Cho, clarinet, bass clarinet, & basset horn
About Yasmina Spiegelberg, clarinet & bass clarinet
About Nicolee Kuester, French horn
About Burt Mason, trombone
About David Cossin, percussion
David Cossin is a specialist in new and experimental music who has worked across a broad spectrum of musical and artistic forms to incorporate new media with percussion. He has recorded and performed internationally with composers and ensembles including Bang on a Can All-Stars, Steve Reich and Musicians, Philip Glass, Yo-Yo Ma, Meredith Monk, Tan Dun, Cecil Taylor, Talujon Percussion Quartet, and the trio Real Quiet. Numerous theater projects include collaborations with Blue Man Group, Mabou Mines, and director Peter Sellars.
Cossin was featured as the percussion soloist in Tan Dun's Grammy and Oscar-winning score to Ang Lee's film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. He joined Sting for the world tour Symphonicities and has performed as a soloist with orchestras around the world, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, São Paulo State Symphony, Sydney Symphony, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, and Singapore Symphony Orchestra.
His ventures into other art forms include sonic installations, which have been presented in New York, Italy, and Germany. He is an active composer and has also invented several new instruments that expand the limits of traditional percussion. David Cossin is the curator for the Sound Res Festival, an experimental music festival in southern Italy, and he also teaches percussion at Queens College in New York City.
https://www.msmnyc.edu/faculty/david-cossin/About Chelsea Lane, harp
About Landon Wilson, keyboards
About Dušan Balarin, theorbo, lute, & electric guitar
About Keir GoGwilt, violin
Keir GoGwilt is a violinist, scholar, and composer whose work combines close listening, research, and collaborative experimentation. He has performed his original, collaboratively-devised music, dance, and theater works at festivals/series including the 92nd st Y, Luminato, PS 122 COIL, Stanford Live, the American Repertory Theater, Carolina Performing Arts, and the Momentary. He has released original music on Another Timbre and 577 Records. He is a founding member of the American Modern Opera Company, who are the collective directors of the 2022 Ojai Music Festival.
https://kgogwilt.com/About Miranda Cuckson, violin & viola
About Colin Brookes, viola
Versatile and virtuosic violist Colin Brookes delights in drawing audiences into his warm and colorful sound world. A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, his work as a soloist, chamber musician and teacher has taken him to cities across the United States, Europe, and the Americas.
An avid chamber musician, he is a founding member of the Ulysses Quartet, winners of the Grand Prize and the Gold Medal in the Senior String Division of the 2016 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. He is also a winner of the Pittsburgh Concert Society, Symphony North Competition, Tuesday Musical Club, and Music For Mount Lebanon competitions.
https://www.instagram.com/colinbbrookes/About Coleman Itzkoff, cello
About Eleonore Oppenheim, double bass
About Sissel Tolaas, speaker
Sissel Tolaas (born in Norway, based in Berlin) has been working, researching, and experimenting intensively with the topic of smell since 1990. She is a pioneer and very unique in her approach to smells. She has developed a wide range of revolutionary interdisciplinary projects worldwide with smells based upon her own knowledge –– forensic chemistry, chemical communication, sensory ecology, linguistics, and visual art. Tolaas established the SMELL RE_searchLab Berlin in January 2004.
Tolaas has unique skills in smell recognition, analysis, and reproduction. She has developed notable methods for coding abstract smell molecules and tracking linguistic reactions to individual smell molecules and smells in general. She has researched and experienced smells in many ways and in multiple diverse contexts and for multiple purposes and formats.
Her research and projects have won recognition through numerous national and international scholarships, honours, and prizes. She is very capable at collaborating intensively with those of other disciplines across the globe.
About Dan Schlosberg, keyboards & conductor
Brooklyn-based composer, pianist, music director, and arranger Dan Schlosberg's music has been performed by the Dover Quartet, Choir of Trinity Wall Street, Minnesota Orchestra, Nashville Symphony, Albany Symphony, Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, and Lorelei Ensemble; and at venues including Carnegie Hall, (le) poisson rouge, The Kennedy Center, Royal Albert Hall, Sydney Opera House, Beijing Modern Music Festival, and David Lynch's Festival of Disruption.
As Heartbeat Opera's music director, Schlosberg has garnered national acclaim for his re-orchestrations of classic operas. As a performer, Schlosberg has collaborated with Angel Blue, Ani Kavafian, Anthony and Demarre McGill, David Shifrin, and the Imani Winds in major U.S. music festivals. Schlosberg is a principal pianist with NOVUS NY, and made his orchestral conducting debut with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in 2023, leading an all-Maria Callas program.
https://danschlosberg.com/