Italian Opera comes to the United States

Scott Wheeler

COMPOSER; PROFESSOR EMERITUS, EMERSON COLLEGE, BOSTON

Composer Scott Wheeler’s operas have been commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera, Washington National Opera, the Guggenheim Foundation and White Snake Projects. Scott’s music has been performed by violinist Gil Shaham, conductor Kent Nagano, as well as singers Renee Fleming, Anthony Roth Costanzo, and Susanna Phillips. His music can be heard on New World, Naxos, Bridge, BMOP Sound, and various other labels.

Scott has appeared as conductor in New York, Berlin, Boston, and on several recordings, often with the Boston-based ensemble Dinosaur Annex, which he co-founded and directed for many years. He has also conducted many productions of opera and musical theatre works and has appeared as a pianist in a wide repertoire of classical, jazz, and cabaret.

Scott Wheeler was born in Washington DC and grew up in various cities in the American midwest and east, then studied at Amherst College, New England Conservatory, and Brandeis. His principal teachers were Lewis Spratlan, Arthur Berger and Virgil Thomson, along with studies at Dartington with Peter Maxwell Davies and Tanglewood with Olivier Messiaen. Scott is Professor Emeritus at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches songwriting,

Lorna Windsor

SOPRANO

The singing career of soprano Lorna Windsor is highly varied between her theatrical performing and eclectic concert appearances. Trained in London, Vienna, and Paris, she has performed most Mozart operas, in particular Così fan tutte in the Giorgio Strehler production, also with Claudio Abbado, Don Giovanni at Glyndebourne, etc, but also Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi, and Richard Strauss in major European opera houses. She has performed many Offenbach operettas but also Bernstein works, Kurt Weill, Piazzolla, Berlin cabaret, as well as Monteverdi, JS Bach Cantatas with G. Leonhardt, and Salieri with F. Bruggen. Lorna is much appreciated for her interpretations of contemporary music, from Kurtag to Bussotti, De Pablo to Kagel, etc. Her CD Vox Sola of avant-garde solo voice music received the Critics Choice award from Opera News, while she is also a dedicated Lieder and recital singer, recognized for her versatility but especially for her deep commitment to interpretation, and has recorded a significant amount of 19th/20th-century Italian music with A. Ballista, B. Canino and various national orchestras. She has sung in such works as Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire (ROH Covent Garden) Walton’s Façade, Ravel-Mallarmé songs and Mahler’s 4th Symphony. Recently she brought out a CD dedicated to the American Art song, from Rorem to Crumb, Wheeler to Thomson, and more.