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Jeannette Lee, Development and Marketing Coordinator
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Boston, MA (November 7, 2022) - In their 16th season, Guerilla Opera introduces the Guerilla Emergence Festival, a virtual festival of ground-breaking works commissioned by Guerilla Opera that runs from Tuesday, November 29, through Friday, December 2, 2022 streaming online and to all devices through Stellar Tickets. The virtual performances will be available to watch on demand until Sunday, December 11, 2022. Virtual admission for individual performances are pay-what-you-can from $2.50-$55.00, or purchase an All Access Pass from $50-$100 to view all the performances in the Guerilla Emergence Festival at stellartickets.com/o/guerilla-opera.

All the performances featured in the Guerilla Emergence Festival are works that will be expanded, developed into full productions, or tour to a city near you! The featured performances are a musical concert of The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage by Elena Ruehr and Royce Vavrek, a live performance of I Give You My Home by Beth Wiemann from the Nicholas House Museum, a live performance of SALT by Bahar Royaee and Deniz Khateri from the ICE Factory Festival in NYC, and ending with a virtual Meet-the-Artist event featuring composer Emily Koh and a first look at a new scene from her opera HER | alive.un.dead slated to premiere in May of 2023.

Learn more about each performance at guerillaopera.org/eventcal/guerilla-emergence-festival.

GUERILLA EMERGENCE FESTIVAL DATES

Tuesday, November 29, 2022, 7:30PM EDT

I GIVE YOU MY HOME

This premiere broadcast of I Give You My Home, with music and libretto composed by Beth Wiemann and stage direction by Cara Consilvio, is from the live site-specific production at the Nichols House Museum in Boston, MA. This live production, which premiered on June 3, 2022, brings to light the passions of Rose Standish Nichols, a true-life Bostonian woman who was a professional landscape architect, published author, and an activist in the women’s peace and suffrage movements.

The live performance featured on Guerilla Emergence Festival is the first iteration of a three-part artistic and transient journey for the opera. In March of 2023, Women’s History Month, the Guerillas will present the world premiere of an operatic film adaptation of the opera, which filmed at locations throughout New England, as well as releasing a studio album of the opera on Navona Records.

The opera was written for Guerilla Opera’s core ensemble members and features soprano and Artistic Director Aliana de la Guardia as Rose, percussionist and co-founding artist Mike Williams and saxophonist Philipp Stäudlin.

I Give You My Home is supported by The Puffin Foundation, a Live Arts Boston grant award from The Boston Foundation and their partners the Barr Foundation and Dunamis Boston, a CIP Projects grant award from Mass Cultural Council, the University of Maine Arts Initiative (Orono), The Switchboard artist residency program in Haverhill, MA and the Nichols House Museum in Boston. The company debut of Cara Consilvio was partially supported by OPERA America’s Opera Grants for Women Stage Directors and Conductors, generously funded by the Marineau Family Foundation.

Wednesday, December 1, 2022, 7:30PM EDT

THE THRILLING ADVENTURES OF LOVELACE AND BABBAGE

The true-life unsung inventors of the first computer teleport to alternative universes using their brilliant new invention to "fight crime" in The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, a comedic new opera by an award-winning duo, composer Elena Ruehr and librettist Royce Vavrek. This rebroadcast of the musical concert premiere from April 22, 2022 was performed from The Dorothy and Charles Mosesian Center for the Arts in Watertown, MA.

The concert features performances by mezzo-soprano Alexis Peart as Ada Lovelace and baritone Michael Galvin as Charles Babbage, with tenor Omar Najimi and soprano Erin Matthews, clarinetist Rane Moore, violinist Lilit Hartunian, cellist Stephen Marotto, and co-founding artist and percussionist Mike Williams.

The world premiere of The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage is set for February of 2023 with stage direction by Tina Mitchell and is supported by The Center for Art, Science & Technology at MIT.

Thursday, December 2, 2022, 7:30PM EDT

SALT

As she cooks soup for her husband, an elder woman reflects on a salty life of being trapped in an abusive and loveless marriage and contemplates a way out. SALT is a surrealist monologue for soprano and electronics, written and directed by Deniz Khateri and with music and live electronics composed by Bahar Royaee. This performance was expanded and performed live at the 2022 Ice Factory Festival from the New Ohio Theatre in New York, NY.

This distinctive work of opera theater was written for and performed by Guerilla Opera’s Artistic Director and soprano Aliana de la Guardia and further featured dazzling video projection design by Nuozhou Wang.

SALT was developed with support from the Museum of Science, Boston SubSpace Series, the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency, and with special thanks to the Dorothy and Charles Mosesian Center for the Arts in Watertown, MA, Arts After Hours in Lynn, MA, Doneeca Thurston, Roxana Myhrum, and the Puppet Showplace Theater in Brookline, MA. Guerilla Opera’s performance of SALT at the 2022 Ice Factory Festival is supported by the New Ohio Theatre and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.

Friday, December 3, 2022, 7:30PM EDT

MEET-THE-ARTIST: COMPOSER EMILY KOH OF HER | ALIVE.UN.DEAD

Meet Emily Koh the composer and librettist of HER | alive.un.dead and discover her artistic journey to writing this sci-fi drama that follows two Chinese-American women who meet in the afterlife. The new bilingual work is sung in Mandarin and English and explores clashes of culture from the perspective of a multigenerational family of Chinese women. After a virtual artist Q&A with the composer, Guerilla Opera will share an excerpt filmed from an experimental workshop on July 17, 2022 with stage direction by Mo Zhou.

This live virtual event features performances by sopranos Bizhou Chang as HER and Felicia Chen as HER 2, violinist Subaiou Zhang Carter, cellist Stephen Marotto, saxophonist Philipp Stäudlin, co-founding artist and percussionist Mike Williams, and with stunning video projection design by Nuozhou Wang. HER | alive.un.dead is slated to premiere in May of 2023 at the Pao Arts Center in Boston, MA.

The commissioning of Emily Koh for HER | alive.un.dead received funding from OPERA America’s Opera Grants for Female Composers program, supported by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation. HER | alive.un.dead is further supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, a Live Arts Boston Grant award from The Boston Foundation and their partners at the Barr Foundation and Dunamis, and with special thanks to the Dorothy and Charles Mosesian Center for the Arts.

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ABOUT GUERILLA OPERA

Guerilla Opera is a BIPOC and feminist organization, Boston's only experimental chamber opera ensemble, and one of only a few in the world with a mission to exclusively present new works of opera theater. Founded in 2007, the ensemble has accumulated a repertoire of over 40 new works by 30 composers. One of Boston’s most exciting companies, they have garnered a national reputation for innovative contemporary opera and daring performances with Opera News raving that “Guerilla Opera redefines the opera experience.”

The works commissioned by this artist-led ensemble are custom-tailored to their artists, who together, confront, examine, and question traditional conceptions of what is “operatic”, champion cutting-edge music, immerse audiences in profound experiences, and model creative authenticity and inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility (IDEA) in order to inspire and influence emerging generations of artists. Their vision is to bring new music to new audiences through a unique body of work that ferociously confronts the status quo, eschews antiquated and stereotypical traditions of the art form of opera, and examines stories by and for the people of today through contemporary lenses. (guerillaopera.org)