Music and Libretto by Adam Roberts

A new opera that breaks down and explores our assumptions of the various meanings of love through a life-changing journey of one man, based on the life of Rumi.

Title: Giver of Light, a chamber opera

Composer: Adam Roberts

Electronics Composer: Anil Çamcı

Libretto: Adam Roberts, based on the life of Rumi

Duration: 75min

Instrumentation: sop, mezzo, ten, bari, alto sax, vln, vc, perc, electronics

Status: Inactive, Available for revival or co-production

HISTORY

02/18-03/17/2021 - Encore viewing of live world premiere performance on Guerilla Opera’s Encore Series via the Sparrow Live platform.
05/23/2013 - World Premiere in The Zack Box at Boston Conservatory at Berklee. Directed by Sarah Meyers. Five performances.

Commissioned for and produced by Guerilla Opera in partnership with the Boston Conservatory at Berklee. This opera was made possible through the generous support of Timothy and Jane Gillette and the Ellis L. Philips Foundation.

Originating Ensemble & Design Team: Jonas Budris (John), Aliana de la Guardia (Elena/Mean Kid), Brian Church (Darren), Jennifer Ashe (Brian/Susan), Amy Advocat (Clarinets), Kent O’Doherty (Saxophone), Mike Williams (Percussion), Javier Caballero (Cello), Andrew Eggert (Stage Director), Julia Noulin-Mérat (Set Designer), Tláloc López-Watermann (Lighting Designer), & Neil Fortin (Costume Designer).

>> Program Book [.PDF]
>> Accessible Video Description [.PDF]

PRESS

“Gloriously weird and sonically rich… opera at its most transporting” New Music Box

“Attractively kinetic score… vibrant… Guerilla Opera as a company (Rudolf Rojahn and Mike Williams, artistic directors) seemed to be exactly where it should be: bringing a freshly ambitious new chamber opera into the world with pluck and style.” The Boston Globe

“an attractive mix of the familiar and exotic… otherworldly… inventive staging” Boston Classical Review

“One need not be an opera aficionado or Rumi scholar to appreciate what they’re doing here. It’s creative, passionate, skilled, and transforming, which is all opera ever has or should be.” North Shore Art Throb

ABOUT THE COMPOSER

Adam Roberts writes music that takes listeners on compelling sonic journeys while drawing on a vivid array of sonic resources. Roberts’ music has been recently performed by ensembles such as the Arditti Quartet, the JACK Quartet, le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, the Callithumpian Consort, Earplay, andPlay duo, Transient Canvas, Ums ‘n Jip, Fellows of the Tanglewood Music Center, the Boston Conservatory Wind Ensemble, the Association for the Promotion of New Music, violist Garth Knox, Guerilla Opera, and at festivals such as Wien Modern (Vienna), Tanglewood, the Biennale Musique en Scene (Lyons), and the 2009 ISCM World Music Days (Sweden).

Roberts is a 2016 Guggenheim Fellowship, and is the recipient of a Fromm Foundation Commission, the Benjamin H. Danks Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, the Bernard Rogers Prize (Eastman), the New York Bohemians Prize (Harvard), the André Chevillion-Yvonne Bonnaud Prize from the Orléans Piano Competition, the Earplay Donald Aird Award, the Christoph and Stefan Kaske Fellowship from the Wellesley Composers Conference, the Leonard Bernstein Fellowship from the Tanglewood Music Center, the Bldodgett Prize (Harvard), and other awards. Commissions have come from the Callithumpian Consort, the Boston Conservatory Wind Ensemble, pianist Nolan Pearson, the Tanglewood Music Center, Guerilla Opera, and others.

Roberts’ music has been called “a powerful success,” “arresting,” and “amazingly lush,” (theBoston Musical Intelligencer), “an attractive mix of the familiar and exotic,” and “otherworldly” (Boston Classical Review), and “invigorating” with a “persistent melodic urge” (American Academy of Arts and Letters citation).

Roberts obtained a Bachelor’s degree in composition from the Eastman School of Music in 2003 and his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2010. Roberts also studied at the University for Music and Performing Arts in Vienna from 2007-2008 on a Harvard University Sheldon Traveling Fellowship. Roberts’ primary teachers have included David Liptak, Augusta Read Thomas, Julian Anderson, and Chaya Czernowin. Roberts has taught at Harvard University, Northeastern University, Istanbul Technical University’s Center for Advanced Studies in Music, and the University of Georgia’s Hugh Hodgson School of Music.