Past Event

PLAYTHING SYNOPSIS

Plaything by Anna Pidgorna and Maria Reva: Hacker Isla Frank leaked damning information on

her government and has found refuge in a foreign embassy. One day, a bird comes to the

window who she recognizes – Madame Suzuki, a beloved talking parrot. Isla captures Madame

Suzuki and uses her new friend as a PR tool to gain the sympathy of journalists and fans

worldwide. Tensions soon arise between human and bird over this new empire, and lines

between what is human and what is wild begins to blur. This darkly comedic collaboration by

sisters Anna Pidgorna and Maria Reva is a social commentary on freedom and the modern

phenomenon of animal celebrity.

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BIO- M3F

Musique 3 Femmes (M3F) is an ensemble fostering the next generation of Canadian women opera creators. They facilitate the biennial Mécénat Musica Prix 3 Femmes, a $50,000 award which supports new commissions by emerging female composers and librettists through seed funding, professional mentorship, and musical and staging workshops. Led by artists Jennifer Szeto, Kristin Hoff, and Rachel Krehm, M3F strives to bring the creative voices and artistic leadership of women to the forefront of opera. The award has led to the creation of 8 new Canadian operas by women since 2018, including the DORA Award-nominated Singing Only Softly and s L’hiver attend beaucoup de moi, which saw a critically-acclaimed premiere with Opéra de Montréal in 2020, with performances in Berlin in September 2022.
M3F’s advocacy in new opera development also emphasizes the training of emerging performers. It has partnered with Toronto’s Opera 5 to facilitate workshops bringing together new creations and university-level performers. Participating schools include the universities of McGill, Queens, Université de Montréal, Mount Allison, Ottawa, Calgary, with upcoming workshops/presentations with the universities of British Columbia, Carleton, and Saskatchewan. Upcoming, Musique 3 Femmes is an Ensemble-in-Residence at the international Feminist Music Theory Conference and co-produces a new work by composer Keiko Devaux in a collaboration with Ensemble Paramirabo.

BIOS – ARTISTS

Jennifer Szeto, pianist

Praised for an “une immense douceur et une précision qui m’a semblé sans faille” (L’Opéra) and “amazing versatility” (Opera Ramblings), pianist Jennifer Szeto carves out a unique path as a performer, coach, and educator. She is a graduate of San Francisco Opera’s Adler Fellowship, Merola Opera Program, Canadian Opera Company’s Ensemble Studio, and Atelier Lyrique at Opéra de Montréal. Recent roles include music directing the world premiere of Laurence Jobidon’s L’hiver attend beaucoup de moi, (described by Montreal Theatre Hub as “exactly what opera needs”) and head coach in Written on Skin, both at Opéra de Montréal. Elsewhere, she is a staff coach for Opera McGill, University of Ottawa, and Highlands Opera Studio. An active administrator, Jennifer serves on the Board of Directors of the Association for Opera in Canada, and acts as Program Manager for Toronto’s Tapestry Opera with the Canadian Opera Resource (COR) and the Women in Musical Leadership Fellowship, a multi-year fellowship for female and non-binary conductors. Jennifer is a founding member of Montreal’s Musique 3 Femmes, a non-profit organization which aims to foster the next generation of Canadian female opera creators, and bring the artistic leadership of women to the fore of the operatic stage.

Kristin Hoff, mezzo-soprano
Noted for her “appealing clarity and emotional heft” (New York Times), mezzo-soprano Kristin Hoff is a graduate of Vancouver Opera’s Yulanda M. Faris Program, where her debut as Tebaldo in Don Carlo was praised as “absolutely charming in voice and person”. Other credits include Dryade in Ariadne auf Naxos at the Tanglewood Music Festival and the title role in Carmen for Jeunesses Musicales du Canada. Kristin made her Carnegie Hall debut with the MET Chamber Ensemble in Elliot Carter’s Syringa conducted by James Levine. Her critically-acclaimed interpretation of Ana Sokolovic’s Love Songs has been seen in 8 different Canadian cities, including at Lanaudiere Festival and Montreal’s Salle Bourgie. Kristin is co-founder of Musique 3 Femmes and Executive Director of the vocal section of the Mécénat Musica Mini-Opéras Santé, a pandemic-born outdoor concert project which brought 4900 mini-concerts to 30,000 people in 2020 alone.

Rachel Krehm, soprano
Soprano Rachel Krehm is a multi-faceted artist, with credits as an operatic performer, producer, writer as well as co-founder and General Director of award-winning indie opera company Opera 5.Recent highlights include a programme of Richard Strauss songs and Come Closer by Ryan Trew both with Kingston Symphony, Vier Letzte Lieder with the Canzona Chamber Players Orchestra, the title role in Ariadne auf Naxos at Highlands Opera Studio, and was featured in Opera 5’s Dora Award-nominated Open Chambers: Hindemith & Shostakovich.A passionate advocate for new Canadian works, Rachel has produced the world premieres of two Canadian operas with Opera 5 – The Masque of the Red Death by Cecilia Livingston and Storybook by Darren Russo, which won the SOCAN Foundation Awards for Young Composers John Wienzweig Prize in 2015. In 2018, she commissioned Vancouver composer Ryan Trew’s song cycle Come Closer for orchestra and soprano. These songs are set to poetry by her late sister Elizabeth Krehm, and were premiered by Rachel and the Canzona Chamber Players orchestra. Rachel is the creator and co-writer of an operatic performance for young audiences entitled Tenors, Trumpets and La Traviata, which has seen performances with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony and the Kingston Symphony Orchestra.

Maria Reva, Librettist

Writer and Librettist Maria Reva is the author of the linked story collection Good Citizens Need Not Fear (Doubleday, Virago, and Knopf Canada New Face of Fiction, 2020). Maria’s stories have appeared in The Atlantic, McSweeney’s, Granta, The Journey Prize Stories, The Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere. She won the Writers’ Trust of Canada’s RBC Bronwen Wallace Award in 2018, a National Magazine Award in 2019, and was a finalist for the Writers’ Trust of Canada 2020 Fiction Prize. Her current musical collaborations include an opera with composer Molly Heron as well as a song cycle with Shelley Marwood. Past collaborations include opera libretti for ERATO Ensemble and Ad Astra Music Festival, texts for Vancouver International Song Institute’s Art Song Lab, and a script for City Opera Vancouver weaving together Mozart’s unfinished operas. Maria was born in Ukraine and grew up in New Westminster, British Columbia. She received her MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas.

Anna Pidgorna is a Ukrainian-Canadian composer, vocalist and multi-media artist who combines sound, visual arts, writing and carpentry to create works that are dramatic and picturesque. She works extensively with Ukrainian folk singing and incorporates elements of this style in her instrumental music. With an enduring love for the outdoors, Pidgorna draws inspiration from the natural soundscape, often imitating birds and animals. Having studied visual arts from an early age, she incorporates visual elements into some of her manuscripts. Her collaborators and commissioners include: Soundstreams, 21C Festival, New Music Concerts, Gryphon Trio, Thin Edge New Music Collective, Michael Bridge, Rachel Mercer (Toronto); Ensemble Paramirabo, Katelyn Clark, Marina Thibeault (Montreal); Standing Wave (Vancouver); Now Hear This Festival, UltraViolet Ensemble (Edmonton); Sandbox Percussion, Ensemble Mise-En (New York); Delirium Musicum, Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra (Los Angeles); Wild Shore Festival (Alaska); Ludovico Ensemble, Trio Klaritas (Boston); Gamin (Korea/New York); Irish Language Art Song Project (Dublin). She is a recipient of two SOCAN Foundation Emerging Composers’ Awards and represented Canada at the ISCM World New Music Days 2013 Festival in Vienna. Pidgorna holds a PhD from Princeton, an MMus from University of Calgary, and a BA from Mount Allison University.

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