This article by Jeffrey Charles Palmer was published by Australian classical and new music magazine CutCommon on 6 March 2019. To see the article in full, click here.

Countertenor Juecheng Chen — Juecheng Chen, photographed by Peichao Lin

Upon entering the dimly lit Underground Theatre of the Abrons Arts Center on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, the audience members who had drifted in to see The Living Dying Opera were greeted with the booming question, “What is opera?”. American electronic composer and performer Hwarg (Howie Kenty), donning a tuxedo, was already at his station onstage behind laptop and mixing board causing this inquisitive cacophony of questioning voices to waft from the large speakers. While at first making everyone laugh nervously, giggles soon shifted to audience members posing this same question to each other.

As the room was plunged into complete darkness, voices gave way to a synthesized organ playing the opening strains of the famous aria Ombra Mai Fu from Handel’s 1738 opera Serse. There was Chinese countertenor Ju-eh (Juecheng Chen), dressed in a white Western shirt and traditional black Hanfu skirt, basking in the spotlight and descending the concrete staircase for what he would later in the event describe as “The Descent of the Goddess”. Upon finishing the aria, Ju-eh immediately entered into a monologue, first praising his own success as a singer, then questioning it. This led to a series of vignettes, beautifully enhanced by the masterful work of French lighting designer François-Thibaut Pencenat, that gave a very intimate look into the mind of a young man trying to make it as an opera star today. From dragging audience members onstage and directing them to behave in certain ways, to soliloquising about singing naked in the bathroom as a teenager, to leading everyone in a guided meditation, the audience was shown different sides of the singer’s complex, fierce, and sometimes fragile persona. By far, one of the most moving scenes in the piece was when, standing back-to-back with Ju-eh, Hwarg read aloud several rejection letters from various music conservatories and programs that Ju-eh had received while Ju-eh himself sang the devastating In Darkness Let Me Dwell by English Renaissance composer John Dowland.

The Living Dying Opera artfully sums up the great paradox that many classical singers face today: they have dedicated their entire lives to mastering an art form that the world largely considers to be dying, while routinely submitting themselves to rejections from those mighty few tasked with preserving that same art form. Yet, through it all, they retain a sense of determination, and often spiritual vocation, knowing that to be a singer is why they were born.

Questions of identity around being Chinese while studying in the West, and not being accepted by schoolmates or others in the classical world, were expertly woven into the piece. Focus was also given to the mysterious role that countertenors play in classical music today.

Ju-eh and Hwarg have created a uniquely 21st Century operatic experience that pushes boundaries while getting to the core of what opera is all about. The flexibility and crystalline qualities of Ju-eh’s voice, Hwarg’s stark and sometimes jarring electronic accompaniment, and the vast amounts of room for improvisation make this opera quite accessible to a contemporary audience, just as 17th and 18th Century operas strived to be in their own days. Thanks to these two young artists and others like them, perhaps our world will be reminded that opera is nothing more than an honest expression of the joy and suffering of the human condition in the highest artistic form of its age. Therefore, opera never really dies, but rather lives on in new incarnations.

This article by Jeffrey Charles Palmer was published by Australian classical and new music magazine CutCommon on 8 February 2019. To see the article in full, click here.

Michael Grebla, self-portrait

On a chilly Saturday night in January, an eclectic mix of Australians, new music lovers, and curious neighbourhood locals gathered in a church in Manhattan’s West Village for an Australia Day Concert. It was host to an array of new works by some of Australia’s best and brightest composers.

One of these composers, Michael Grebla, happened to be present that evening.

I was fortunate enough to meet Michael for the first time just a few months ago at a New York concert given by the critically acclaimed Zodiac Trio – true champions of new and innovative chamber music. Michael was selected to attend the trio’s annual festival in the South of France in 2018, where he won the prize for Most Outstanding New Work.

A native of Perth and a graduate of the University of Western Australia, Michael first came to the United States to study at Boston’s New England Conservatory; last year completing a Master of Music with Honours. I had heard great things about him from the Zodiac Trio members themselves and was very keen to hear some of his compositions, to which he graciously sent me links. I was immediately taken with his lush, almost cinematic orchestrations, and asked that he let me know when one of his pieces would next be performed in New York; which brings us back to that church in the West Village. When he invited me to write about the experience of listening to his music, I welcomed the challenge.

Nestled in between pieces by fellow Australian composers Jodie O’Regan, Chrstopher Healey, Jakob Bragg, Josephine Jin, Isabella Gerometta, and Peter Martin was Michael’s new work Sympathy. Written for voice and cello, the piece is a setting of the poem of the same name by Paul Laurence Dunbar, a freed slave from Kentucky who became one of the first influential black poets in the United States. Like nearly every other American who studied poetry in high school, I was very familiar with this poem, but had never heard it set to music. I settled in for what was I felt to be a rare treat.

Michael immediately sets the mood with the cello’s chilling opening line, giving way to Brisbane soprano Amber Evans’ voice – low, almost chant-like, singing the famous words: “I know how the caged bird feels, alas!”. I was immediately hit by the powerful pang of sorrow encapsulated in these words. The piece continued to build beautifully into the middle section, climaxing on the line: “And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars; and they pulse again with a keener sting. I know why he beats his wing!”. The juxtaposition of the soaring vocal line with the cello’s churning triplets perfectly reflected the poet’s beautifully crafted words of longing.

I found Michael’s work to be a particularly refreshing take on a piece of classic American poetry; perhaps because it was composed by someone who wasn’t as familiar with its history, coming at it with fresh eyes and ears. There have been many instances when a piece of art deemed as a national treasure was created by someone with diverse heritage. El Greco (The Greek) became one of the greatest artists of the Spanish Renaissance. Many of the most popular Christmas songs of the 20th Century were written by Jewish composers. Even Australia’s own national anthem was Scot Of course, the evil of slavery taints the history of both the United States and Australia. When listening to the lines in Michael’s work, “When the sun is bright on the upland slopes; When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass”, one could just as easily imagine the sugar can plantations of Queensland as the cotton fields of Kentucky. This is what makes Michael’s Sympathy not only a prime example of the many fine works that young Australians are contributing to America’s new music scene, but also a testament to the universal strength and endurance of the human spirit.

Like many others in his generation, Michael is one of many young Australians making his mark on new American music and contributing greatly to this important art form. I can only hope that he will continue to lend his musicality to classic pieces of American poetry in the future and help Australia Fair advance to greater success in the halls of American music.