Spark of Imagination: Generations of the Pueblo Opera Program with Sonja & Seth Martinez
Key Change: Creating Opera for All Voices
Release Date: 07/20/2022
Making Learning Sticky: Creative Compassion for Kids & Educators Through Opera with Charles Gamble
Key Change: Creating Opera for All Voices
We're taking an Opera For All Voices-adjacent excursion to the realm of wiggly kiddos, innovative teachers, and fresh vocabulary words, highlighting the power of playful arts integration. Join Key Change co-hosts Andrea Fellows Fineberg and Anna Garcia with special guest Charles Gamble, Santa Fe Opera's Director Of School Programs, as they introduce two of Santa Fe Opera's most dynamic community engagement programs: , a multi-session residency within the Santa Fe Public Schools that incorporates creative arts to make learning delightfully sticky; and , professional development...
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The Key Change Time Machine: Reflecting the Times, Speaking to the Human Condition
Key Change: Creating Opera for All Voices
It’s all systems go for season five of Key Change! But before we commence with the anniversary celebrations, co-hosts Andrea Fellows Fineberg and Anna Garcia dust off the time machine for a whirlwind tour of seasons past. Think of this episode as part process evaluation––an appraisal of Opera For All Voices (OFAV), the Santa Fe Opera initiative committed to co-commissioning and co-producing new, diverse operatic works––and part indispensable playlist for repeat audiences and newcomers alike, covering the essential artistic and emotional moments that have made Key Change an...
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Season 5: Stretching The Boundaries Of What Opera Can Be
Key Change: Creating Opera for All Voices
It's season 5! This season, we're inviting you, our favorite listeners, on a journey through time and space -- traveling back in time to the origins of Key Change and Opera For All Voices and forward into the future of boundless possibilities. This spring, Andrea Fellows Feinberg and Anna Garcia take you through through the community engagement portal to hear from the voices transforming the future of opera. And in the fall, they'll offer a backstage pass to latest Opera For All Voices commissions as we continue to shift the conversation about what opera is and what it can be. New...
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Connections Across Time and Space: Opera in the Cosmos
Key Change: Creating Opera for All Voices
Seven years ago, Santa Fe Opera started a conversation that would reverberate throughout American Opera, shaping this celebrated art form into something more reflective of the world in which it's created. Today, Opera For All Voices (OFAV) commissions have surpassed even our wildest storytelling expectations. Key Change co-hosts Andrea Fellows Fineberg and Anna Garcia tuck into the time machine for a season-ending trip around the OFAV universe, revisiting the initiative's greatest hits and offering fans a glimpse at what's to come––with Ruth Nott, consultant, Opera for All Voices;...
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Competing Interests: How Do You Workshop a New Opera?
Key Change: Creating Opera for All Voices
Roadtrip! After many long months of necessary virtual collaboration, the creative team behind The Pigeon Keeper, a Santa Fe Opera Opera For All Voices (OFAV) commission, finally got to spread their wings for an emotional workshop in San Francisco. Key Change co-hosts Andrea Fellows Fineberg and Anna Garcia discover what it was like to have everyone (well, almost everyone) in the same room for the very first time––featuring composer David Hanlon, librettist Stephanie Fleischmann, stage director Mary Birnbaum, music director Kelly Kuo, dramaturg Cori Ellison, Ruth Nott, consultant for...
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Hometown to the World Debuts on Broadway
Key Change: Creating Opera for All Voices
If a chorus of 12 teens can provide compelling commentary on immigration enforcement from the stage of a venerable performing arts center in Santa Fe, how might ten times that number of voices impact the debate? From a Broadway venue that has welcomed some of the twentieth century’s most influential social justice visionaries? Key Change co-hosts Andrea Fellows-Fineberg and Anna Garcia pilot the time machine east to find out, setting a course for the 2022 premiere of at New York’s storied . Adding their insights to this aural postcard are Hometown’s composer Laura Kaminsky...
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Telling Hard Truths
Key Change: Creating Opera for All Voices
What do you know about the life and legacy of Fannie Lou Hamer? Chances are, not much. That's about to change. Co-hosts Andrea Fellows Fineberg and Anna Garcia dust off the Key Change time machine for a trip back through time and place to the real-life inspiration for This Little Light of Mine (TLLoM), the modern operatic masterpiece commissioned by Santa Fe Opera's Opera For All Voices initiative. Good thing this ride is roomy because joining them are two women who can claim a direct connection to Mrs. Hamer: Jacqueline "Cookie" Hamer Flakes, Mrs. Hamer's last surviving daughter, and...
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A Day in the Life Before a World Premiere
Key Change: Creating Opera for All Voices
It’s October 28, 2022. As a brisk, still night settles over Santa Fe, things are heating up inside The Lensic Performing Arts Center. Longtime opera patrons mingle alongside never opera goers. Soon, the curtain will rise on This Little Light of Mine (TLLoM), a modern operatic masterpiece composed by Chandler Carter with libretto by Diana Solomon-Glover. The one-act production is an unflinching yet uplifting dramatization of the life of Fannie Lou Hamer, a Black woman born on the very lowest rung of the American caste system. A Black woman who nonetheless rose to speak at the 1964...
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Spark of Imagination: Generations of the Pueblo Opera Program with Sonja & Seth Martinez
Key Change: Creating Opera for All Voices
If you’re unfamiliar with Santa Fe Opera’s (POP), take a quick journey back in time for of this conversation. Go ahead; we’ll wait. In it, you’ll meet Renee Roybal and Claudene A. Martinez, both members of Pueblo of San Ildefonso. The pair recall the early days of POP and the formation of the (POCC). Now that you’re sufficiently caught up, join Andrea Fellows Fineberg as her time machine co-pilot Kyle Gray, SFO’s Manager of Community Relations & Government Affairs, wraps up the conversation (for now.) Renee and Claudene return to share recollections of their early...
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Story With Purpose: The Origin of the Pueblo Opera Cultural Council with Renee Roybal and Claudene A. Martinez
Key Change: Creating Opera for All Voices
All aboard the Key Change time machine for a two-part trip! On this half of the journey, we toggle back to the origins of a beloved community-based program and then forward to celebrate its exciting expansion. 2023 will mark the 50th anniversary of the , lovingly known around the Santa Fe Opera as POP. Key Change commemorates this momentous event by passing the mic to colleague Kyle Gray, SFO’s Manager of Community Relations & Government Affairs. Kyle and his guests discuss the POP legacy and (POCC), which blossomed out of an artistic collaboration between legendary director Peter...
info_outlineIf you’re unfamiliar with Santa Fe Opera’s Pueblo Opera Program (POP), take a quick journey back in time for part one of this conversation. Go ahead; we’ll wait. In it, you’ll meet Renee Roybal and Claudene A. Martinez, both members of Pueblo of San Ildefonso. The pair recall the early days of POP and the formation of the Pueblo Opera Cultural Council (POCC).
Now that you’re sufficiently caught up, join Andrea Fellows Fineberg as her time machine co-pilot Kyle Gray, SFO’s Manager of Community Relations & Government Affairs, wraps up the conversation (for now.)
Renee and Claudene return to share recollections of their early collaborative interactions with legendary director Peter Sellars in conjunction with the 2018 world premiere of Doctor Atomic. Then Sonja and Seth Martinez, Renee’s daughter and grandson, share memories of the SFO visits that shaped their affinity for opera. The discussion concludes with a roundtable wishlist of future POP-lead initiatives.
“I definitely remember paying attention to the weather,” Sonja laughs, recalling stormy visits to the outdoor opera house before its much-anticipated roof upgrade. The unexpected theatrics only added to the excitement of attending world-class opera in her own backyard.
What could compare to opera amid wild thunderstorms? The thrill of watching family and friends perform on that same majestic stage. “It was very exciting!” says Seth of the corn dance that POCC created as part of Doctor Atomic. He hopes SFO continues to integrate Indigenous traditions into its future seasons (along with more comedy, operas about space, and significant historical events). Meanwhile, his mother envisions expanded opportunities for Indigenous children to explore performance- and stagecraft-based endeavors.
POP and POCC ensure that that future is within reach.
FEATURING
Andrea Fellows Fineberg - Host, Key Change
Kyle Gray, Santa Fe Opera Manager of Community Relations & Government Affairs
Renee Roybal, Pueblo of San Ildefonso
Claudene A. Martinez, Pueblo of San Ildefonso
Sonja Martinez
Seth Martinez
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Doctor Atomic - Santa Fe Opera, 2018
RELATED EPISODES
Season 4, Episode 4: Story With Purpose: The Origin of the Pueblo Opera Cultural Council with Renee Roybal and Claudene A. Martinez
Season 2, Episode 6: The Universe is Made of Stories: A conversation with Peter Sellars
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Key Change is a production of The Santa Fe Opera in collaboration with Opera for All Voices.
Produced and edited by Andrea Klunder at The Creative Impostor Studios
Hosted by Andrea Fellows Fineberg
Audio Engineer: Kabby at Kabby Sound Studios in Santa Fe
Show Notes: Lisa Widder
Theme music by Rene Orth with Corrie Stallings, mezzo-soprano, and Joe Becktell, cello
Cover art by Dylan Crouch
This podcast is made possible due to the generous funding from the Melville Hankins Family Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and an OPERA America Innovation Grant, supported by the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation.
To learn more about Opera For All Voices, visit us at SantaFeOpera.org.