Heretic Opera

Fun with research!

2011-07-14T15:29:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to write a blog entry extolling the virtues of research for quite some time now. For me, there is a unique sense of satisfaction in pushing beyond my own assumptions and common knowledge to find aspects of a piece that I didn't even know existed. The feeling of luxurious playfulness when settling down with a new stack of books (or laptop and search engine, as the case may be) is equaled only by the payoff - new information that can forge a strong connection between two disparate elements of the current production. I can't imagine a better way to ensure creation of a fresh story (rather than a pale imitation someone else's viewpoint) than to build directly on personal research. And then, of course, there are the extra, not-immediately-useful facts that accumulate as a by-product of the process. I adore these. How else, for instance, would I learn about ancient Egyptian boat building techniques (they used twine to hold the ships together!), "fancy rat" breeding, current theories on neuroplasticity, or the 1950s Marlboro ads which featured babies asking their mamas to light up before she scolds them?

All silliness aside, I am always deeply grateful to my crazy research compulsion when an unexpected deadline looms. Knowing the material inside and out allows for added innovation and flexibility as new opportunities present themselves or obstacles are encountered. Maybe someday someone will write an aria about the heady pleasures of research - but probably not me - I'll be too busy learning about rural Oregon history, the relevant physics of asteroid mining colonies or the finer points of Zoroastrian liturgical ceremonies. I'm not kidding. These are actually on my long-term list. And I'm going to feel like a very lucky lady indeed during the planning stages of those new works.

Arts and Crafts and New Websites

2011-04-03T15:41:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about William Morris, the Arts & Crafts movement, and their credo that artisans should design and build their own work. It was a belief hearkening back to the craft guilds of the middle ages, which they romanticized as being a golden age for creativity and personal freedoms; rooted in a dislike of the increased specialization and mass-production of the industrial age, where workmen were assigned one small aspect of a large, centrally administered project. It's a concept that applies in some interesting ways to the opera world, where specialization allows for the production of large collaborative works. If the singers spent the rehearsal process fighting with the director, for example, while the stage-hands were off rewriting the score, we'd all be in a lot of trouble.

Still, in the arts-start-up world, and in the entrepreneurial world in general, I think there is a lot to be said for being involved at every level of your organization or business. When I started Heretic Opera, I definitely had some misconceptions of how we would grow, based on the blueprints that other, more traditional companies were built upon. For example, I assumed that we would of course perform some sort of community outreach, that we would need a marketing/pr guru, and that we would need someone very competent with computers to build and administrate our website. But along the way, I learned a few things:

1) The best way to build a new business or arts organization is to focus on your core mission (in our case, producing new operatic works and finding ways to make them profitable in the marketplace).

No one is going to be as passionate about building your dream as you are. While friends and supporters are usually pretty happy to help out in areas they know well (and everyone loves pitching in at the exciting, this-is-so-cool moments), there are going to be a lot of days or even months where it will be only you, in your tiny office (should you be lucky enough to have one), doing the grunt work of building the company. There are moments when it is just hard to believe that what you're doing will ever make it out into the real world. (I've seen this happen in other start-ups, too. I occasionally do free-lance marketing for Old Stock Audio - in trade for equipment and support during our recording projects - and I've given more than a few "keep with it, someday all of this will seem worthwhile" pep talks that were also secretly directed at myself.) The last thing you want to be doing is frittering away your time and energy on peripheral projects. Keep yourself and your company moving forward on the core mission. This is what will keep you motivated and feeling connected, all those late nights in your office: the promise that, pretty soon, you will have something cool to share with your project partners. Maybe even the world, someday. And then it feels like meaningful collaboration again.

2) While strong creative partners are indispensable, it is best to keep the day-to-day operations of the company well in hand.

When we first needed a website for Heretic Opera, I cajoled someone into designing one for me for free, and another person into maintaining it. (I am nothing if not thrifty.) Here was the problem: it didn't really represent us very well, because we hadn't yet figured out how to best communicate our mission, work, and goals for the future. But, over time, it became more and more impossible to ask people to donate hours to our website updates when they had their own jobs to do and their own companies to run. So our website languished, and the multi-media content that we prepared never made it online at all. I considered hiring someone to build us a new website, but then I would have had to pay them to make regular updates (using money intended to support the development of new operas).

Finally, I decided to face my fears and try to build a website myself. After a few hours of staring blankly at the introductory screen in Web Expressions, I started looking around online for a template to buy and customize - but since I don't know how to work with Flash or edit html, I found that we would still have to pay someone else to do that work for us. Finally (and I feel somewhat foolish that this was my last resort), I decided to see what our web host, fatcow.com, offers for website design support. They actually had a couple of good options! I chose their Weebly website editor and upgraded to the version that supports multi-media content (later on, if we want to add a store, we can do that too). While the customization options are limited, I was able to build us a nice-looking and easily navigable website without too much trouble. The best part is, I can update it at any time, from anywhere. On Friday night Ken, our composer, sent me some new content for our Jefferson page. It took me about a little over a half-hour on Saturday afternoon to make my selections and post excerpts to the web. That's a less than 24 hours turn around! My next goal is to streamline our film editing process, so that I can post video of our August recording sessions in Fresno. It's a complete game-changer for us to be able to share our work quickly and easily. I can't believe how good it feels, or how much it has re-inspired my work with Heretic Opera.

A cautionary tale: I was just talking to my uncle, who, with new partners, is trying to move his small manufacturing business into a more specialized market. The designer they contracted to build their website wanted to set it up so that not only would all edits or updates need to go through him (which, for a growing online store and service manufacturer can be crippling, especially in a quickly changing field - what if they need to change something right away but he's sick or out of town?), but actually wanted to register the domain name "for" them. How thoughtful, right? Except then he would own the only portal of access to their customers and all of their online content. In my opinion, this is just information-super-highway robbery.

So research your options, know your business, and plan accordingly. Like William Morris, I think we all still dream of a golden age for creativity and personal expression. Let's get to work and see if we can't make it happen.

Updating, and Moving Along

2011-03-29T14:57:00.000-07:00

Heretic Opera was founded to support the creation of new operatic works, establish a hybrid business model to drive success in the entertainment market, and to be as transparent as possible as we created, experimented, and fine-turned our process. One of my passions (and the driving concept behind this company) is the idea that artists have a responsibility to share fresh, honest, and innovative stories based on life in the modern world. I believe that this means that artists should have direct access to the means of creating and producing, as well as financially benefiting from, their own works. In my experience, young artists are too often taught a form of hyper-specialization that is intended to make them more appealing as a performer for hire, but does not prepare the student with the tools to explore or realize their personal visions. So I wanted to make my experiences as an arts entrepreneur accessible, in hopes that it would inspire emerging artists to think "well, if she can do that, I bet I could." What I didn't anticipate is how describing your process as you go can be not only difficult, but actually distracting from the task at hand. I also didn't realize that there would be long stretches of time where I would be doing work that I considered either too dry or too nebulous to share with anyone.

This year, Heretic Opera is beginning our second recording project and enjoying updates on our second commissioned opera (Jefferson, by Kenneth Froelich and Daniel Johnson), as well as moving forward with a multi-media approach for our first opera, Valentine. My personal routine is less blog-worthy than that sounds, however - full of research, scheduling, and office work for the foreseeable future. Still, I hope to be able to find compelling moments to share and shed a little light on the daily life of a start-up opera company. Or you can always check our Twitter feed. I'm pretty confident in my ability to write 140-character posts on a semi-regular basis.

Autumn Musings

2009-10-29T07:02:00.000-07:00

October 2009: I barely knew you. This month has been a complete blur, and it seems that today is the first day in a very long time where I feel like I have a chance to catch my breath! What have I been up to? Well - other than my usual professorial life, directing and running a new music festival, attending the premieres of two large ensemble works ("Tock" for concert band, and "Jefferson Rising" for orchestra), adjudicating a composition competition, and raising a two year old...well, you get the idea!

Of all of these activities, the Fresno New Music Festival needs a special mention from me. I founded this event back in 2006, and with the fourth festival now having come and gone, I must say how please I am with how it has grown! The inaugural 2006 festival was a mixed bag for me, as although we had a really great guest act in Duo46, the festival wasn't attended well at all. (Incidentally, Duo46 was one of two guest ensembles for the festival - our second ensemble, The Quintet of the Americas, was stranded in the Dallas airport!!!) In addition, my daughter had just been born three weeks earlier, so as you might imagine I wasn't in much of a position to host.

So, having reflecting on where this festival started from, I can safely say that we have made many improvements over the past few years! Having both Don Freund and Adrienne Albert as guest composers was a real treat - especially in part due to their many interactions with the Fresno State students. The Definiens Project proved to be a masterful chamber ensemble, and it is my intent to bring them back to future festivals (especially since I will be writing a chamber concerto for them!). Finally, I must give our two student ensembles - The Fresno State Symphony Orchestra, and the Fresno State Saxophone Quartet - special props for all of the incredible hard work that they did! Their performances were incredibly impressive, especially considering the difficult music that they had to learn in a very short time period. While the festival still wasn't attended as well as I would like, attendance was most certainly better than it had been in the past. Next year, though, I'm filling the hall!

Admittedly, directing this festival can feel at times like a huge undertaking, especially since this is all done pro bono! However, with the passing of each festival I always come back with the same thought: I can't wait until the next one! It is, to use a cliché, a labor of love.

Now that the festival has past though, I can once again resume work on writing the music to Josephine & Valentine! I am just about done with the music for the first scene, and will shortly begin working on the music for Act I, Scene IV. I often enjoy composing material "out of order," as it gives me ample opportunity to "preview" thematic material and motives earlier in the work before the actual presentation of the idea. I'm not sure exactly how this will turn out in the actual opera, but I have a feeling that elements of this scene will manifest themselves in scenes II and III as well. Should be fun!

As a final note - I will be up in Portland visiting the Heretic Opera next week, from November 5th through 8th. I look forward to finally meeting everyone in person, and putting more than just "facebook" faces to everyone's names! Until next week!

Forging New Connections

2009-09-10T20:30:00.000-07:00

A key belief for our artistic staff is that western classical music should not stand separate from other highly crafted art or music forms. One reasons we are so pleased with our Composer-in-Remote-Residence, Kenneth Froelich, is his comfort in incorporating influences from jazz to bluegrass. Is this the furthest that we'll ever go in incorporating other musical forms? Probably not - depending on the execution and available artists.

Broken down to its essentials, opera is a very fluid, through-composed, structure that requires a multi-disciplinary approach. Theoretically it can accomodate a wide variety of story-telling approaches (as in the discussion I had recently about the possibility of producing an opera grounded in Persian music). But can an opera company incorporate non-operatic performances of art music? Should importing other musical disciplines be the role of any opera company? What if an "outsider" artist offers a vision that is powerful, unique, and capable of moving a new audience? On the other hand, what happens to our art form once you break away entirely away from the classical model?

It is my goal to explore the boundaries of opera as we build a healthy and successful business. And I hope that other artists will also provide their own answers to the above questions. With so much talent and craft in the performing arts world, I believe that opera has a real opportunity to gain relevance and new audiences in the future - but we'll need a lot of new ideas from many different sources to accomplish this. Let's get started, shall we?

Introductions!

2009-08-29T09:28:00.000-07:00

For those of you reading who do not know me, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Kenneth Froelich, and I am very proud to be the new Composer-in-Remote-Residence for the Heretic Opera!

The Heretic Opera has invited me to be a part of their organization, so it is my goal to ensure that the music I create matches the vision of this company. I am personally very excited to be contribute to this forward-thinking organization, and believe that this is the start of a great professional relationship.

As part of my residency, Madelaine Coffman has invited me be a regular contributor to this blog. Over the next several months, I will post regular updates here detailing my experience and creative process writing the music for "Josephine and Valentine." I invite all of you to comment on my process, providing criticism where you see fit, or writing anything else that comes to mind!

In the meantime, if you would like to ask me any questions, or simply introduce yourself to me, please feel free to send me a message at kfroelich@csufresno.edu. You can also find me on Facebook, or through my website. Finally, if you are curious about what I do as a teacher, you can check out my blog, The Electric Semiquaver, where I post tips to young composers on how to compose effectively in programs like Finale and Sibelius.

I am honored to be a part of all of this, and look forward to meet all of you at the Heretic Opera. Now, time to get to work!

Catching Up

2009-08-27T17:27:00.000-07:00

So much has been happening for Heretic Opera since I last posted here! This blog began as a way to give an inside look at a start-up performing arts company (something I thought might be helpful for other arts entrepreneurs), but my time flies so fast that a lot of significant experiences and events go undocumented. We recently had our Launch Party, which was very fun - thank you to Kim, Alex, and Kirsten for all of your hard work! (Party pics can be found on our Facebook page.)

Even more importantly, we've hired our first Composer-in-Remote-Residence, Kenneth Froelich. Kenneth initially approached us about his vision for an original opera focusing on the 1940's secession movement, the State of Jefferson (which we'll be producing in 2013). When he applied for the Valentine project as well, I was surprised by how well he fit our very ambitious list of desired composer attributes. We're very excited to welcome him to Heretic Opera, and we can't wait to produce his work on Valentine in 2011! You can check him out at www.kennethfroelich.com, and he'll be an occasional contributor to this blog as well.

Further Adventures in Starting a Business

2009-07-13T13:35:00.000-07:00

I took last week off to take an intensive course in Basic Mediation Skills - very soon I will be certified as a mediator in the State of Oregon. It's a good skill set to have at your disposal when working with artists, or with anyone who makes a career out of making themselves vulnerable to collaborators and strangers.

Now that I'm back, I am busy with a lot of odd little projects that have been piling up on my desk. This weekend was partly spent buying records for the DJ to play at our launch party and, at his request, tagging each record with playing suggestions. It was kind of wonderful to have the time to explore new (to me) music - from The Soviet Army Chorus & Band's recording of Murderers Stalk the Earth, to the lovely voice of Diahann Caroll, to the clean tight jazz of Amad Jamal, to William Russo's brilliant mash-up Three Pieces for Blues Band and Orchestra. It's a funny thing, but after listening to Brubeck, Coltrane, Coleman, and other jazz greats, that Liszt, Bartok, Spanish Baroque guitar music, Bach, and Purcell all begin to sound a bit jazzy as well. This really is just one big world of music, and the mix can be tweaked any way you want.

I've come to have a similar perspective regarding my process with Heretic Opera. Most people don't think about the work that goes into creating a new opera company - creating a business plan that facilitates the mission statement, learning how to use new social technologies, securing a board and setting a budget is all stuff that happens behind the scenes. But since all of this is just as important to the process of presenting an opera as having singers onstage on opening night, where do you draw the line between the creative process and office drudgery? Too often we tend to box things into very small categories: despite the success of Street Scene and Porgy & Bess real opera shouldn't make use of the jazz idiom, accounting cannot be considered creative unless it involves stealing from your employers, classical music and the structures it has created (symphonies, operas, etc.) are inherently elitist and only a small percentage of the population would be interested in them anyway. I don't consider these prejudices to be true or helpful. In my experience, people seem excited about high-level work created with the casual listener in mind, and happy to engage with it in whatever way they can. I know I am more content spending the majority of my days hunched over the keyboard and planning new projects than I was as a singer, when I sometimes felt almost incidental to the creative process (a teacher of mine once called that standing onstage and spitting out pitches).

In the end, I think that any work can be a creative contribution as long as the effort is directed towards a meaningful goal. I also believe that music and other art forms can be highly crafted and still be made accessible to a wide range of people. I'm truly grateful for the opportunity to build a company that pursues these ideals in a concrete, pragmatic fashion. New projects, professional development classes, research for the DJ, and all.

Troubles with Technology

2009-07-03T16:42:00.001-07:00

Well, it's been a bit of a difficult 24 hours here at Heretic Opera. The computer keeps on crashing and freezing - upwards of 10 times now, I believe - and so my tasks for today and yesterday have been shelved in favor of simply trying to get my "other brain" up and running again. It's funny how, even in a traditional performing arts company, a huge percentage of the work is done with a computer. We are completely dependent on these fragile pieces of plastic, silicon, and copper. I'd bemoan the loss of my automomy from Microsoft and Google, but the truth is I turned in my Luddite badge the minute I realized that how emerging social medias could change the way people interact with the arts, and help to make some of the things I love relevant again. So, march on, inevitable progress of technology!