Works & Process: HILDEGARD by Sarah Kirkland Snider

WORKS & PROCESS PRESENTS
BETH MORRISON PROJECTS/PROTOTYPE FESTIVAL,
LA OPERA, AND ASPEN MUSIC FESTIVAL AND SCHOOL
HILDEGARD BY SARAH KIRKLAND SNIDER

PANEL
Alan Fletcher, President and CEO, Aspen Music Festival and School
Christopher Koelsch, President and CEO, LA Opera
Beth Morrison, Creative Producer
Elkhanah Pulitzer, Director
John Schaefer, Moderator
Sarah Kirkland Snider, Composer, Librettist

MUSICIANS
Nola Richardson as Hildegard von Bingen

Mariana Corichi Gomez, Conductor

Contemporaneous Ensemble
Giancarlo Latta, Violin 1
Finnegan Shanahan, Violin 2
Dudley Raine IV, Viola
Amanda Gookin, Cello
Pat Swoboda, Bass
Violetta Norrie, Harp
Yoshi Weinberg, Flute
Kristina Teuschler, Clarinet
Dávid Nagy, Bassoon

Leadership support for this Works & Process program is provided by Eugene and Jean Stark.

PROGRAM

To Console, Hildegard Shares a Memory
Sung by Nola Richardson

PROGRAM NOTES
Set in 1147, HILDEGARD follows German Benedictine abbess/polymath/composer St. Hildegard von Bingen as she receives visions from God. At grave risk of excommunication, she sets out to document her visions, enlisting her fellow nun Richardis von Stade to illustrate the manuscript. As they develop a transformative partnership that awakens them in ways both profound and unexpected, the two women must confront the powers that would see them erased from history rather than making it. More broadly, HILDEGARD is about the desire for connection – to divinity, to humanity, and to our deepest sense of self – and the conflicts that compete therein.

The world premiere of HILDEGARD, produced by Beth Morrison Projects and
co-presented with LA Opera and The Wallis, runs from November 5–9 at LA Opera. For tickets and more information, visit laopera.org.

HILDEGARD runs from January 9–11, 14, 16–17 as part of the PROTOTYPE Festival at BRIC ARTS MEDIA. For tickets and more information, visit prototypefestival.org.

By arrangement with G. Schirmer, Inc. obo Music Sales Corporation, publisher and copyright owner.

Commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects. Commissioned in part by the Aspen Music Festival and School and OPERA America Grants for Female Composers award funded by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation. Additional commissioning support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts. The production of Hildegard received funding from OPERA America’s Opera Fund, New York State Council on the Arts, New Music USA, the Arthur F. and Alice E. Adams Charitable Foundation, William Kennedy, Betsy Greenberg, and Pamela Drexel. Developed and produced by Beth Morrison Projects. Developed with Lyric Theater @ University of Illinois, Princeton University, and Mannes School of Music.