World Premiere

January 12-14, 7:30pm, 14 2:30pm

Eve Beglarian – Composer/Writer
Karen Kandel – Writer/Performer
Mallory Catlett – Director
Lauren Genevieve – Performer
Red — Performer
Megan Schubert – Performer/Arranger
Melanie Dyer – Viola
Gwen Laster – Violin
Christina Morris – Bass
Janice Lowe — Music Director
Peiyi Wong – Set Design
Kate McGee – Lighting Design
Dianne Smith – Costume Design
Wyatt Moniz – Video Design
M. Florian Staab – Sound Design
Leslie Cuyjet — Choreographer
Eric Dyer – Production Manager
Jason Kaiser — Production Stage Manager
Autumn Angelettie – Associate Director
Louis Brown – Associate Costume Design
Alex Brock — Associate Sound Design/Audio Engineer
Francisco J. Rivera Rodriguez — First Assistant Stage Manager
Yuchen Lin — Second Assistant Stage Manager
Sara vanden Huevel — Wardrobe & Props Supervisor
Carl Hancock Rux – Creative Advisor

The texts of The Vicksburg Project are constructed from historical diary entries, letters home, newspaper accounts, live interviews, and original writing by Karen Kandel as well as poetry by June Jordan, Thylias Moss, and Lucille Clifton. These materials are spun into intimate songs and confessions inspired by everything from parlor music of the 1860s to traditional blues of the 1920s to freedom songs of the 1960s, and from Wagnerian lushness to solo uke strumming to a capella chant.

The opera premiered in October at Penn State!
Conducted by David Bloom
with Now Ensemble

Megan Schubert, Jane Jacobs
Rinde Eckert, Robert Moses
Melisa Bonetti, Ensemble
Kelvin Chan, Bob Jacobs/Ensemble
Tomás Cruz, Ensemble
Blythe Gaissert, The Displaced Woman/Ensemble
Christopher Dylan Herbert, Ensemble
Tesia Kwarteng, Ensemble
Kamala Sankaram, Ensemble
Hai-Ting Chinn, Swing

Patrick McCollum, Choreographer
Andrea Lauer, Production Designer
Robert Bloom, Lighting Designer
Greg Allen, Sound Designer

Further dates around the world TBD in 2023. 

Review in The Wall Street Journal (click link for full article)
"Megan Schubert's vivid high soprano colored Jacobs's obsessiveness and obstinate determination..."

Interview with Judd Greenstein and Joshua Frankel for Urban Omnibus (click link for full interview)
Composer Judd Greenstein: A lot of the writing for Megan Schubert in Act I exists in her beautiful, classically trained, soprano range. But she also has this unbelievable belt voice that you only hear, really for the first time, in its full power, at the very, very end of Act I when she answers Bob Jacobs's question: 'Jane, what are we going to do?' And that winds up being the gateway to what is to come in Act II, where that becomes much more where she lives vocally.

August 2022: ​JAZZ EM AGOSTO
Nate Wooley Trumpet
Samara Lubelski Violin
C. Spencer Yeh Violin
Chris Corsano Drums
Teun Verbruggen Drums
Ryan Sawyer Drums
Susan Alcorn Pedal steel guitar
Julien Desprez Electric guitar
Ava Mendoza Electric guitar
Håvard Wiik Keyboards
Rodrigo Pinheiro Keyboards
Megan Schubert Voice
​
with Gulbenkian Choir members: 
Anna Kássia
Carla Frias
Carmo Coutinho
Elsa Gomes
Joana Esteves
Manon Marques
Marta Ribeiro
Sara Afonso
Directed with Inês Lopes

"Kai Wright takes us on a bike tour across Brooklyn - alongside Streetsblog New York reporter Dave Colon - to survey the ways in which inequity is built into the blacktop. Former New York City Traffic Commissioner Sam Schwartz a.k.a. Gridlock Sam shares a behind-the-scenes look at the history of the city’s streets and how our relationship to public space has transformed - for better or worse. 
WNYC transportation reporter Stephen Nessen talks about Vision Zero, the push for biking infrastructure and why mayoral candidates’ rhetoric about safe streets is revolutionary. Read Stephen's latest reporting on Gothamist, including 'Who Will Be The Next Vision Zero Mayor?'"
In the last five minutes of the episode: "...And we hear a clip of an artistic rendition of the battle for the city’s streets through “A Marvelous Order,” an opera conceived by three artists: composer Judd Greenstein, poet Tracy K. Smith, and visual artist and director Joshua Frankel. The selection features Megan Schubert as Jane Jacobs; with Eliza Bagg, Kelvin Chan, Marisa Clementi, Tomás Cruz, Lucy Dhegrae, Christopher Herbert, and Kamala Sankaram; conducted by David Bloom, and instrumentals by NOW Ensemble."

Direct link and transcript: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/anxiety/episodes/robert-moses-lets-start-over​

A new work in response to the coronavirus crisis featuring contributions from the public
by Lisa Bielawa
with Kaufman Music Center in New York City as Lead Partner
"Begun on April 9, 2020, Broadcast from Home is a large-scale work open to contributions from people around the world."

CHAPTER 8: ”Who Knows?”
MAY 28, 2020 TEXT / CREDITS
"All of this week's testimonies are from teenagers, who are trying to look towards a future that is constantly shifting. Uncertainty is uncomfortable!"
CHAPTER 9: ”Hear me, hear me, hear me”
JUNE 4, 2020 TEXT / CREDITS
"At its core is a testimony from an Anonymous 15-year-old in Brooklyn, who writes, ''Justice,' for too long, has been a faint hum… Hear me, hear me, hear me.'"
CHAPTER 15: ”After-lives”
JULY 16, 2020 TEXT / CREDITS
"We are seeing our former lives through a new lens now, as we begin this new phase. This Chapter is dedicated, with love and gratitude, to the hundreds of you who participated in this collaboration."

Kitty Brazelton's choral project STORM

"STORM derives Latin text from Vulgate Psalm 103 about fire, flood and a great storm. Translated and set to music by Kitty Brazelton in 2012, after Hurricane Sandy flooded New York City, the piece won an Ossietzky KompositionPreis from the University of Oldenburg, Germany. In 2020, the overflow of anger, plague, fire, storm and flood brought the words and music renewed resonance, and Brazelton adapted it for the COVID Choirs Project, all the singers recording from home in quarantine. From homes all over the world."

The Vicksburg Project
Eve Beglarian, Karen Kandel, Mallory Catlett
To be staged at Mabou Mines, 2022
A staged song cycle of twelve interlocked songs that trace women’s experiences in Vicksburg Mississippi during four different eras: the Civil War 1860s, the Jim Crow/Great Migration 1910s, the Civil Rights 1960s, and the current decade.
I'll be playing Emilie Riley McKinley and have been involved in the development of her song, derived from her diary, these past few months.