Monsters
By David Del Tredici (world premiere)
Performed by Eric Moe, piano, and Robert Frankenberry, actor
Generally recognized as the father of the Neo-Romantic movement in music, David Del Tredici has received numerous awards and has been commissioned and performed by nearly every major American and European orchestral ensemble. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1980 for In Memory of a Summer Day for soprano and orchestra. Much of his early work consisted of elaborate vocal settings of James Joyce and Lewis Carroll. More recently, Del Tredici has set to music a cavalcade of contemporary American poets, often celebrating a gay sensibility. Del Tredici makes his home in Greenwich Village. His music is published exclusively by Boosey & Hawkes.
Eric Moe, composer and pianist, has received numerous recognitions for his work, including awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Guggenheim Fellowship; multiple commissions from both the Fromm and Koussevitzky Foundations, the Barlow Endowment, and New Music USA. As a pianist, Moe has premiered and performed works by a wide variety of composers. He founded and currently co-directs Pittsburgh’s Music on the Edge new music concert series. Moe studied at Princeton University and U.C. Berkeley and is currently the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Music at the University of Pittsburgh.
Robert Frankenberry leads a multi‐faceted career as vocalist, pianist, educator, actor, and conductor. His credits in musical direction cover the span of opera, including Sweeney Todd (Weathervane Theatre), The Tales of Hoffmann (D’Angelo Opera Theatre), Così fan tutte (DaCorneto Opera), Monteverdi’s 8th Book of Madrigals (Opera Theater of Pittsburgh), Robert X. Rodriguez’ Frida (microscopic opera), and the staged premiere of Daron Hagen’s Vera of Las Vegas (Center for Contemporary Opera). As a member of Millennial Arts Productions’ Baroque Opera Institute, he received specialized training in Baroque gesture and vocal performance style, and appeared in a fully-staged Off-Broadway production of Handel’s Messiah.
Poster Design: Robert Del Tredici