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Ausrine Stundyte as Cio-Cio-San, Elizabeth Janes as Butterfly’s child and Sarah Larsen as Suzuki in Seattle Opera's production of Puccini's Madama Butterfly. Photo by Elise Bakketun.
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CD#: 2 - Track#: 4

 COMPOSER
Derek Bermel
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Composer and clarinetist Derek Bermel has composed works that draw from a rich variety of musical genres, including classical, jazz, pop, rock, blues, folk and gospel. Bermel currently serves as artist-in-residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and as creative advisor to the American Composers Orchestra. He has received commissions from orchestras, ensembles and soloists worldwide, and his many awards include the Rome Prize, Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellowships and the Alpert Award in the Arts. Bermel has performed his clarinet concerto with more than a dozen orchestras, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and at the Beijing New Music Festival. In 2010, the album Voices, featuring four of his orchestral works, was nominated for a GRAMMY. Bermel has worked with many musicians, including Wynton Marsalis, Midori, John Adams, Paquito D’Rivera, Philip Glass, Sir James Galway, Gustavo Dudamel, Luciana Souza, Mos Def and Stephen Sondheim. He studied composition with Louis Andriessen, William Albright, Henri Dutilleux and William Bolcom, and clarinet with Ben Armato and Keith Wilson. He also studied ethnomusicology and orchestration with André Hajdu in Jerusalem, Thracian folk style with Nicola Iliev in Bulgaria, caxixi with Julio Góes in Brazil and Lobi xylophone with Ngmen Baaru in Ghana. http://www.derekbermel.com
LYRICIST
Wendy Walters
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Wendy S. Walters is the author of Troy, Michigan (forthcoming from Futurepoem Books in 2013), Longer I Wait, More You Love Me (2009) and a chapbook, Birds of Los Angeles (2005), both published by Palm Press (Long Beach, CA).  She is a 2011 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Poetry. Walters has been a nominee for the Essay Prize and her work has been published in Bookforum, The Iowa Review, Coldfront, Seneca Review, Seattle Review and Harper’s Magazine. In 2008, along with Derek Bermel, she was commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony and Mendelssohn Choir to write the libretto for The Good Life, an oratorio celebrating the first 250 years of Pittsburgh’s history. In addition to works for large ensembles and orchestras, they have written dozens of art songs. They are completing a musical called Golden Motors, which was commissioned by the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust.
VOCALIST
Jo Ellen Miller
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Soprano Jo Ellen Miller is a versatile performer known for her “lovely, rounded tone” (The New York Times) in her work as an interpreter of contemporary works. She was led by James Levine as the soprano soloist with the Met Chamber Ensemble at Carnegie Hall. Preceding that, she was led by Pierre Boulez with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Miller has been featured at Tanglewood, Ravinia, the Library of Congress, all three stages at Carnegie Hall and with the Boston Pops. She is featured on an album for Albany Records (Stillness and Change), and soon-to-be-released albums for Naxos and Bridge Records (pieces by Richard Festinger and Mohammed Fairouz, respectively).
PIANIST
Kelly Horsted
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Kelly Horsted enjoys an active career as a vocal coach and accompanist. Horsted has been a music director for the Composers and the Voice series at American Opera Projects (AOP) for three seasons. Other projects with AOP have included Herschel Garfein's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead directed by Mark Morris, Tarik O’Regan’s Heart of Darkness and Paula Kimper's Patience and Sarah for the Lincoln Center Festival. He has also collaborated with Chelsea Opera, Center for Contemporary Opera, Opera Company of Brooklyn, Wintergreen Festival, New Jersey Opera Theater, Friends and Enemies of New Music, Five Words in a Line and the graduate musical theater writing program at the Tisch School. He has taught at Mannes College of Music, Hartt School of Music, Hunter College, Intermezzo and OperaWorks. His B.M. and M.M. are from the Eastman School of Music. http://www.kellyhorsted.com


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Spring 2013 Magazine Issue
  • Letter from the President/CEO
  • Of One: The Quest for Asian Fusion in the Opera House
  • Vancouver: Where Nature Nurtures Art
  • Inheriting the Wind
  • My First Time
Contact Us
330 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001
P 212-796-8620 • F 212-796-8621
Info@operaamerica.org • Directions
From Airport:
The easiest way to reach the OPERA America offices is to get a cab at the airport. Cost is $40-45
(not including tip).
  • JFK - Take the AirTrain ($5 - approx. 15 minutes) to the Jamaica Street Station and transfer to the Long Island Railroad (LIRR). Take the LIRR to Penn Station ($12 - approx. 35 minutes). See Penn Station directions below.
  • LaGuardia - Take the M60 Bus to the Hoyt Ave/31st Street. Get on the or Train and take that to 42nd/Times Square Station. Follow the Times Square Station directions below.
  • Newark - Take the New Jersey Transit train to Penn Station ($15 - approx. 45 min). See the Penn Station Directions below.

From Penn Station/Madison Square Garden:
Leave the station through the 7th Avenue/33rd Street exit and walk south for four blocks. The building is on
the right hand side.

From Grand Central Station:
Take the Train to the 42nd/Times Square station and transfer to the Train.
Take the Train to the 28th Street stop and walk north on 7th Avenue.
The building is on the same block as the train stop.

From 42nd Street/Times Square:
Take the Train to the 28th Street stop and walk north on 7th Avenue.
The building is on the same block as the train stop.

For more detailed directions, most up-to-date pricing or to specify a different starting location, please visit the
MTA Web site.