The Stony Brook Department of Music 2012-2013 season includes three opera programs and four children’s programs. Opera performance dates are scheduled for fall, winter and spring.
Stony Brook Opera presents three productions every season — a program of scenes with piano accompaniment in November, a chamber opera in February and a full production in April. Full productions are performed on a three-year repertoire cycle, alternating a Baroque opera, a contemporary opera and a popular standard repertory opera. This year’s emphasis is on baroque opera.
The fall production takes place on Monday, November 19, 2012, at 8 pm, in Staller Center’s Recital Hall. General admission is $5. Metropolitan Opera soprano Jennifer Alymer returns to direct Impressions de Pelléas, an adaptation of Debussy’s Impressionistic masterpiece, Pelléas et Melisande. The opera will be sung in the original French with projected titles in English and accompanied by an ensemble of two pianos and percussion.
The winter production, Hansel and Gretel, will be presented in a new chamber version on Friday, February 22, 2013, at 8 pm, on Staller Center’s Main Stage. Sung in English, the opera will be accompanied by an ensemble of flute, clarinet, horn, string quartet and piano. A children’s chorus — whose members were recruited from local schools — will join the Stony Brook Opera cast for this production. Tickets are $10 for general admission and $5 for seniors and all students with ID.
The full production, Handel’s masterpiece Orlando, will be performed on Staller Center’s Main Stage on Saturday, April 13, 2013, at 7:30 pm, and on Sunday, April 14, at 3 pm. The opera will be sung in the original Italian language with projected titles in English. The Stony Brook Baroque players will perform on period instruments. Tickets are $20 for general admission and $15 for seniors and all students with ID.
For more information visit stonybrook.edu/commcms/music/opera.
Children’s Music Classes
Four children’s music programs, designed for pre-K to sixth grade, are available Saturdays at Stony Brook from mid-September 2012 to mid-May 2013. The interactive classes are part of the Community Music Program and the curriculum emphasizes learning music based on singing and physical movement in a social setting. The classes are based on the philosophies of Swiss composer Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, Orff Schulwerk and the Kodaly Method. Many Stony Brook music faculty have enrolled their own children in this program, demonstrating that they consider it the ideal foundation for musical study.
Music Basics for Kids is a class where four-year-olds learn the basics of pitch, rhythm and notation through games and exercises involving singing and physical movement. The class is taught by Dorothea Cook, a certified and licensed Dalcroze instructor.
Dalcroze Eurhythmics Level I, or the first level of Dalcroze Eurhythmics for kindergarten and first grade, emphasizes simple and compound meters, rhythmic patterns, phrasing, ear training and musical notation, and is also taught by Cook.
Dalcroze Eurhythmics Level II, for second and third grade students, employs exercises and games to develop advanced musicianship skills such as mixed meter, polyrhythm, notation in bass and treble clefs, conducting and rigorous ear training. Cook is the instructor.
Intermediate Performance Program, which is geared for grades four to six, is a new program offering studies in vocal technique, music theory, instrumental improvisation and composition. Eileen Benedict, a renowned choral director and elementary school music specialist, is the teacher.
For more information, call (631) 867-2220 or visit www.sbcmp.org.
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