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From the Chair of SIO
Dr. Isai Jess Muñoz
For close to a decade the Sacred in Opera Initiative has provided the NOA community with a thoughtful newsletter and convention sessions that serve to disseminate information on past and present productions, research, pedagogy, and other happenings related to the interplay between opera and the ideals of world religions. We owe much of the SIO Initiative’s indelible success to its leaders such as former NOA President John Pfautz, Kurt-Alexander Zeller, Ruth Dobson, Carl Gerbrandt and many others. This edition marks the beginning of a new editorial team charged with the difficult task of filling their shoes. I am indebted to the NOA Board for entrusting me with the honor of serving as chair and senior editor of this significant initiative. I look forward to partnering with many of you, and to hear all your ideas and suggestions that might continue to support our mission.
This December issue highlights three new operas sponsored by the SIO that focus on injustices caused by systemic social issues. We first begin by giving you a glimpse into our upcoming SIO convention session in Santa Barbara which will discuss and present excerpts from composer Andrew Barnes Jamieson’s avant-gospel chamber opera, Heaven Down Here. This work explores contemporary racial and religious conflict through the lens of the Jonestown Massacre—the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act prior to the events of September 11, 2001. We then offer you a look back on the success of Joachim Schamberger’s production of William David Cooper’s Hagar at the 2016 NOA National Convention in Indianapolis. Hagar is an opera based on the oppressed female protagonist found in Judeo-Christian, Islamic, and Baha’i traditions whose story offers an allegory on the difference between law and grace. Finally, we highlight the upcoming world premiere of Upon This Handful of Earth by Norway's foremost composer, Gisle Kverndokk. In honor of the publication of "Laudato Si," Pope Francis' recent encyclical about the environment, Kverndokk’s opera tells the stories of people whose lives have been irrevocably altered by environmental catastrophes: Chernobyl, the tsunamis, pollution and climate change.
We hope these articles reflect our team's commitment to provide you with robust dialogue and respectful discourse that models what it means to produce sacred opera in an increasingly diverse world. As we look with despair at many of today's ongoing global calamities charged by religious conflict, the SIO Initiative will continue working in line with its mission statement and vision that welcomes all faith traditions, to create a positive awareness of religious and spiritual diversity—overcoming prejudice, violence, and misunderstanding for the betterment of society as a whole.
We invite you to make your hotel and plane reservations and register for the 2017 NOA Convention in Santa Barbara (January 4-8, 2017). This year’s Sacred in Opera Session, which will take place on Thursday, January 5 from 2:30-3:20pm alongside all other convention events focused on this year’s theme, Fostering Change: Performance and Pedagogy in Opera’s New Millenium, is bound to engage the senses in game-changing ways.
Lastly, please take a moment to read through notes on our Editorial Board. The SIO Committee has refined our language on peer reviewed article submissions. We are always interested in hearing from potential contributors, and we have drawn up a few points on why and how our web-based format might just be the best high-impact publication to showcase your ideas and work.
As you prepare to join us this coming January in Santa Barbara, take time to tell your colleagues, music directors, and all those interested in aspects of the divine, that we are here, spreading the Sacred in Opera!
Reflecting on all that good ol’ opera can do in the world,
Dr. Isai Jess Muñoz
The Sacred in Opera Initiative of the NOA
Chair and Senior Editor www.JessMunoz.com
From the Editorial Board
Article Submission and the Peer Review Process
Although traditional print journal and monograph publishing is still alive and well, non-traditional forms of publishing such as the Sacred in Opera Web and Blog based format can serve as wonderful supplements or alternatives to traditional scholarship. Web based publications such as ours can enable the broadest possible readership of your research outputs and become an important way to maximize the dissemination and impact of your findings. It is also important to note that the publishing process serves as a networking vehicle. In order to better serve our community members, the SIO committee continues working diligently to refine its formalized peer review process for the vetting of article submissions and materials to our newsletter. We welcome you to visit our updated submission criteria found in the SIO pages of the NOA website. We are always interested in supporting the good work you are doing in the field of Sacred in Opera. Let us hear from you.
Change of Leadership
After many years of faithful service to the SIO, founder John Pfautz announced his decision to complete his time of active service to our Initiative. Under the recommendation of the SIO Committee, Dr. Isai Jess Muñoz was voted in by the NOA Board to serve as the new chair and senior editor of the SIO. Formerly Associate Professor at Indiana Wesleyan University, Dr. Muñoz has joined the voice and opera faculty at the University of Delaware. We wish to thank Dr. John Pfautz for his many years of contribution to the NOA, and in case any of you were wondering, he continues to mentor and applaud all of our efforts. The current list of the SIO Committee and Editorial Board includes:
Dr. Isai Jess Muñoz
University of Delaware
SIO Chair and Senior Editor IJMunoz@udel.edu
Professor Ruth Dobson
University of Oregon
Dr. Tammie Huntington
Indiana Wesleyan University
Dr. Michelle Louer
Second Presbyterian Church, Indianapolis
Professor Susan McBerry
Lewis and Clark College
Dr. Bonnie von Hoff
Georgia College
Dr. Kurt-Alexander Zeller
Clayton State University
Avant-Gospel Opera HEAVEN DOWN HERE
Explores Contemporary Issues on Race and Religion
By Diego Villaseñor
This coming January at the NOA Convention in Santa Barbara, THE SACRED IN OPERA INITIATIVE of NOA will discuss and present excerpts from composer Andrew Barnes Jamieson’s avant-gospel chamber opera, Heaven Down Here, which explores contemporary racial and religious conflict through the lens of the Jonestown Massacre. In 1977 Over 1000 members, led by Pastor Jim Jones, left their San Francisco headquarters The People’s Temple, for Jonestown, Guyana where most would later die in a massacre orchestrated by their leader—the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act prior to the events of September 11, 2001. Jamieson and his creative team will discuss the philosophy behind his recent opera. The composer will also explain the full experience of the work’s production process which seeks to explore the use of African American Pentecostal Hymnody and Spirituals infused with experimental harmonies and improvisation, to mirror the radical and provocative theology that the congregants of People’s Temple hoped to embody. Continue Reading...
WORLD PREMIERE: HAGAR at the 2016 NOA/NATS Convention, Indianapolis
By John Pfautz
On behalf of the Sacred in Opera Committee for the National Opera Association, I am delighted to share on the success pertaining to this past year’s SIO Plenary Session at the NOA Convention in Indianapolis. Dr. Isai Jess Muñoz, from the faculty of the University of Delaware, coordinated the performance, which showcased excerpts from a new Sacred Opera, Hagar, by recent winner of the Charles Ives Composition Award from the Academy of Arts and Letters, William David Cooper, commissioned by Second Presbyterian Church of Indianapolis. The performance was followed by a panel discussion with the production team discussing the commissioning and producing of Hagar, as an example of new operas successfully being funded and presented today by sacred spaces. The composer, stage director, producer, conductor/commissioner, and performers had much to share about how this production came to fruition owing much to the vision and support of numerous individuals and churches. Continue Reading...
Upcoming World Premiere:
Gisle Kverndokk Upon This Handful of Earth
Friday, February 24, 2017 at 7 PM
St. Ignatius Loyola, New York
In honor of the publication of "Laudato Si," Pope Francis' recent encyclical about the environment, The Sacred Music in a Sacred Space Concert Series of St. Ignatius Loyola and The New York Opera Society (NYOS) have commissioned a new chamber opera from renowned Norwegian composer Gisle Kverndokk and librettist Aksel-Otto Bull based on the writings of Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Inspired by and featuring Teilhard’s “Mass on the World,” Kverndokk’s opera tells the stories of people whose lives have been irrevocably altered by environmental catastrophes: Chernobyl, the tsunamis, pollution and climate change. The work offers a hopeful, empowering meditation on the way forward from the human and environmental toll of these events. Continue Reading…
From the Chair of SIO
