Jake Heggie. Courtesy photo.
SANTA BARBARA — The Santa Barbara Museum of Art will present “The Sound of Stars Parallel Stories with Jake Heggie” at 3 p.m. Sunday, May 22 at the New Vic Theatre, 33 West Victoria St., Santa Barbara.
In this unique collaboration between the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and Opera Santa Barbara and in celebration of the exhibition Through Vincent’s Eyes: Van Gogh and His Sources, composer, pianist, Grammy nominee, and Guggenheim Fellow Jake Heggie discusses the coming together of “The Starry Night,” a song cycle inspired by the art of Vincent van Gogh with text taken from his letters and poetry by Anne Sexton and Emily Dickinson. Performed by mezzo soprano Erin Alford.
Heggie is the composer of 8 full length operas, several one acts, nearly 300 art songs as well as chamber, choral, and orchestral works. He has been called by The Wall Street Journal “Arguably the world’s most popular 21st century opera and art song composer.”
$25 SBMA Members/$30 Non-Members
Purchase tickets at tickets.sbma.net.
More about Jake Heggie:
Jake Heggie is the composer of the operas Dead Man Walking, Moby-Dick, It’s A Wonderful Life, If I Were You, Great Scott, Three Decembers, and Two Remain, among others. He has also composed nearly 300 songs, as well as chamber, choral and orchestral works. The operas – most created with Gene Scheer or the late Terrence McNally – have been produced on five continents. Dead Man Walking(McNally) has been recorded twice and in 2019 received its 70th international production, making it the most-performed American opera of our time. New York’s Metropolitan Opera recently announced that it will produce Dead Man Walking in a bold new production by director Ivo van Hove, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Moby-Dick (Scheer) was telecast throughout the United States as part of Great Performances’ 40th Season and released on DVD (EuroArts). Great Scott was a 2019 Grammy Award nominee for Best New Composition, Classical. The composer was awarded the Eddie Medora King prize from the UT Austin Butler School of Music and the Champion Award from the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus. A Guggenheim Fellow, Heggie has served as a mentor for the Washington National Opera’s American Opera Initiative and is a frequent guest artist at universities, conservatories and festivals throughout the USA and Canada. INTONATIONS: Songs from the Violins of Hope (Scheer) recently received a premiere and live recording. Upcoming are Songs for Murdered Sisters, a song cycle to new poems by Margaret Atwood, and Intelligence (Scheer, Zollar), a new opera for the Houston Grand Opera. jakeheggie.com