October 19th Concert

Tickets Season tickets are $45 general, $36 for students, seniors and disabled, and can be purchased directly from Composers, Inc. by calling 415.512.0641 or visiting our website at composersinc.org Single tickets are $17 general, $14 for students, seniors and disabled, and are available through Old First Concerts at 415.474.1608 or online at oldfirstconcerts.org, or at the door thirty minutes before each performance.	Read about this first concert of our 2010-11 Season at our new website www.composersinc.org Tuesday, October 19, 8:00 pm  Old First Presbyterian Church 1751 Sacramento Street San Francisco Our opening concert features a staged production of A Very Large Mole, a witty, bordering outrageous one-act opera by Allen Shearer. In Claudia Stevens’ libretto after Kafka, a schoolteacher and a journalist vie for recognition around the alleged sighting of a huge mole. Both defer to a learned professor, the third member of the cast. Tenor Michael Mendelsohn, baritone Allen Shearer, bass Richard Mix and a quintet of instruments are conducted by Jonathan Khuner. And there is more! Piano virtuoso Eliane Lust will premiere Jeffrey Miller’s intriguing Preludes. Dale Wolford and Victoria Lington return to Composers, Inc. with David Biedenbender’s Images for alto saxophone and piano. Finally, violinist Mira Benjamin of Montreal will playVocalise by Taylor Brook. This tantalizing violin solo with drone, rooted in the Hindustani tradition, won the 2010 Lee Ettelson Composer’s Award.

Allen Shearer about 'A Very Large Mole'

I am very pleased that my one-act opera A Very Large Mole will be performed fully staged on the opening concert of the Composers, Inc. series Oct. 19. This piece was written in 2009 in collaboration with Claudia Stevens, who based her libretto on a little-known Kafka short story. Briefly, A village schoolmaster claims to have discovered a gigantic mole in his remote district and has contrived to write a pamphlet about it. His literary efforts are ridiculed by a local journalist, and a professor respected as an expert on moles scoffs at his pretensions to scholarship. Thus a questionable occurrence results in a turf war of a type familiar in academic circles. Occasional brief arias alternate with declamatory vocal writing. It is scored for three singers, all male (unusual in opera) and five instruments chosen to reflect the humor in the text: flute, oboe, bassoon, piano, and double bass. A Very Large Mole lasts about 25 minutes. –Allen Shearer

Composers, Inc. presents new American Music

                                          Composer, Taylor Brook

Tuesday October 19, 2010 8:00pm
Old First Presbyterian Church
1751 Sacramento St. San Francisco

Our opening concert features a staged production of Allen Shearer’s A Very Large Mole. Witty, comical, and outrageous are but a few of the snapshots out of this one-act opera on a libretto by Claudia Stevens after Kafka's story “Der Dorfschulmeister.” A schoolteacher and a journalist compete for public recognition around the alleged sighting of an unusually large mole, both of them deferring to a learned professor, the third member of the all-male cast. Tenor Michael Mendelsohn, baritone Allen Shearer, bass Richard Mix and a spirited quintet of instruments are conducted by Jonathan Khuner. A great way to whet your operatic appetite and introduce the people in your life to a comical night at the opera that will leave them clamoring for more! 

This brief opera is only part of a rich offering of fresh and innovative chamber music. Piano virtuoso Eliane Lust will premiere Preludes, an intriguing new work by Jeffrey Miller. Dale Wolford, and Victoria Lington return to the Composers, Inc. series to perform Images for alto saxophone and piano by David Biedenbender. Finally, guest violinist Mira Benjamin of Montreal will play Vocalise by Taylor Brook. This sinuous and tantalizing violin solo with drone, rooted in the Hindustani tradition, is a winner of the 2010 Lee Ettelson Award.

This concert is presented in collaboration with Old First Concerts.
Visit www.composersinc.org for more information about our Lee Ettelson Award and future events. 

Season tickets are $45 general, $36 for students, seniors and disabled, and can be purchased directly from Composers, Inc. by calling (415) 512-0641 or www.composersinc.org.  Single tickets are $17 general, $14 for students, seniors and disabled, and are available through Old First Concerts at (415) 474-1608 or www.oldfirstconcerts.org, or at the door thirty minutes before each performance.  For more information please contact Composers, Inc. at (415) 512-0641 or visit www.composersinc.org

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Composers, Inc., founded in 1984, is dedicated to presenting new music by living American composers. The five artistic directors are prominent Bay Area composers Robert Greenberg, Frank La Rocca, Jeffrey Miller, Martin Rokeach, and Allen Shearer. Composers, Inc. is supported in part by Grants for the Arts of the San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, the Bernard Osher Foundation, the BMI Foundation, and the San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music Musical Grant Program.

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