Megan Schubert, vocalist and composer, has performed music by Stockhausen for an audience under umbrellas in a torrential downpour for Make Music New York; world premieres at Carnegie Hall; with robots while locked inside a Van de Graaff Generator at Boston’s Museum of Science; on a bike flying by the audience in an installation piece at McCarren Park Pool, Brooklyn; with Cambodian master of classical dance, Proeung Chhieng; in a giant potato sack while video was projected onto her frontside at Webster Hall; for inmates at a maximum security prison in Ossining, NY; with puppets at E 4th Street Fab! Fest; for Elliot Carter at a celebration of his 100th birthday; shared the stage on multiple occasions with such luminaries as Meredith Monk, Bang On a Can, and with many ensembles championing art music and experimental jazz of today.
In recent years, Schubert sang in the premieres of large works by Robert Ashley, Luigi Nono (with Ekmeles), Georges Aperghis, Bernard Rands, James Ilgenfritz, Sonia Megías, Jenny O. Johnson, Annea Lockwood, Nick Hallett, Kitty Brazelton, Inhyn Kim, Nate Wooley (Psalms from Hell, and for Anna Sperber's The Superseded Third, Seven Storey Mountain V--later version, Seven Storey Mountain VI--Ghent, Berlin, Lisbon, and New York versions), Jonathan Bepler (with Matthew Barney for opera film River of Fundament and newest film REDOUBT (2019), for John Jasperse's Within Between, for Wally Cardona & Jennifer Lacey's The Set Up, and Cardona's GIVEN IN THE BLACKBOX), Cally Spooner, Kirsten Volness, Guy Barash, David Friend, Christian Frederickson, Tino Sehgal (Public Art Fund production of "This You"), Charlie Looker, Matt Fagen, Allen Shawn, Tina Davidson, Alison Nowak, Eve Beglarian, and in new productions of operas by Denman Maroney and Jason Cady. Schubert gave the Canadian premiere of David Lang's "death speaks" as part of the Honens Festival in Calgary, AB. QUARTET, a composer lab presented at Roulette and as part of Lady Fest at The Tank was a continuation of collaborations over the years with other performer/composers to develop new works. Some of Schubert's work was then presented in futuredays, an extended reality presentation with works by Inhyun Kim in Seoul. Schubert sang in Zeena Parkins' Ekstasis I, a work inspired by Jay DeFeo and The Rose, also presented by Roulette. Schubert plays Jane Jacobs in Judd Greenstein, Tracy K. Smith, and Joshua Frankel's opera, A Marvelous Order, which had its world premiere at Penn State in 2022. Upcoming tour and New York performances in 2026-2027. Schubert plays Emilie Riley McKinley and Fran O'Brien in Eve Beglarian, Karen Kandel and Mallory Catlett's The Vicksburg Project developed at Mabou Mines presented January 12-14, 2023 at Harlem Stage. Current projects include a solo, self-accompanied album of original compositions and text to be presented live at the cell theatre on June 17, 2025. Schubert, longtime assistant to opera director Rhoda Levine, and the late Moog synthesizer pioneer, composer, conductor and pianist Gershon Kingsley, holds degrees from Bennington College where she studied voice with Tom Bogdan and Rachel Rosales, composition with Allen Shawn and Stephen Siegel, and Manhattan School of Music where she studied voice with Arthur Levy and Lucy Shelton, and composition with J. Mark Stambaugh. She co-founded the Avant Music Festival and co-curated years 2010-2015. She studied opera privately with tenor/actor Anthony Laciura (Boardwalk Empire, Metropolitan Opera). She is an AGMA member and has been a professional chorister and church musician in New York since 2009. Recordings can be found on Innova, Pyroclastic Records, Avant Media, Pleasure of the Text Records, BRIM, Infrequent Seams, Last Things, Ideologic Organ, etc. -On Pauline Oliveros' "Teach Yourself to Fly" -- Sound American -In Meg Wilhoite's "The rise of chamber opera in New York City" --Bachtrack |
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