loader from loading.io

From Gardening to Greeting Guests, Volunteers Run the World! with Marissa Aurora, Artist & Volunteer Liaison

Key Change: Creating Opera for All Voices

Release Date: 05/15/2024

Music Born Out of a Modern Experience: The Pigeon Keeper Orchestral Workshop show art Music Born Out of a Modern Experience: The Pigeon Keeper Orchestral Workshop

Key Change: Creating Opera for All Voices

It takes a village - and multiple revisions! - to mount a modern, original opera. Key Change co-hosts Andrea Fellows Fineberg and Anna Garcia journey to an orchestral workshop for The Pigeon Keeper, a first for (OFAV)!  Imagine a stage filled with an eight-member student orchestra, four principal singers, and a women's chorus. Drop in the composer, librettist, and members of the OFAV team. Truncate the rehearsal period and invite an audience for a live presentation plus a feedback session. Now, you understand the excitement and angst surrounding an orchestral workshop. Andrea reconnects...

info_outline
From Gardening to Greeting Guests, Volunteers Run the World! with Marissa Aurora, Artist & Volunteer Liaison show art From Gardening to Greeting Guests, Volunteers Run the World! with Marissa Aurora, Artist & Volunteer Liaison

Key Change: Creating Opera for All Voices

Cue the lights! It’s time to illuminate a vital yet often invisible component of life at Santa Fe Opera: volunteerism. Key Change co-hosts Andrea Fellows Fineberg and Anna Garcia chatted with Marissa Aurora, Santa Fe Opera’s , on her first anniversary in the role. And what a year it’s been!  Marissa, a multi-discipline artist and radio DJ, has worked hard to revitalize relationships between the Opera and its volunteers. She’s also introduced an exciting new performing arts production internship in collaboration with Northern New Mexico College.  So, how do you quantify the...

info_outline
Harmony in Process: The Young Voices of the Santa Fe Opera with Amy Harmony in Process: The Young Voices of the Santa Fe Opera with Amy "Process" Owens

Key Change: Creating Opera for All Voices

What does an award-winning, multi-disciplinary artist, dynamic educator, and former Sweet Potato do for an encore? She brings that boundless energy and collaborative spirit to her new Santa Fe Opera role, fueled by a deep passion for opera and music education.  Co-hosts Andrea Fellows Fineberg and Anna Garcia roll out a virtual red carpet welcome for Amy Owens, Director of the . Get to know this exuberant, optimistic talent and learn more about the program under her stewardship. Andrea, Anna, and Amy also explore the profound community impact of two beloved SFO programs: , a storytelling...

info_outline
Making Learning Sticky: Creative Compassion for Kids & Educators Through Opera with Charles Gamble show art 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...

info_outline
The Key Change Time Machine: Reflecting the Times, Speaking to the Human Condition show art 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...

info_outline
Season 5: Stretching The Boundaries Of What Opera Can Be show art 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...

info_outline
Connections Across Time and Space: Opera in the Cosmos show art 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;...

info_outline
Competing Interests: How Do You Workshop a New Opera? show art 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...

info_outline
Hometown to the World Debuts on Broadway show art 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...

info_outline
Telling Hard Truths show art 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...

info_outline
 
More Episodes

Cue the lights! It’s time to illuminate a vital yet often invisible component of life at Santa Fe Opera: volunteerism. Key Change co-hosts Andrea Fellows Fineberg and Anna Garcia chatted with Marissa Aurora, Santa Fe Opera’s volunteer liaison, on her first anniversary in the role. And what a year it’s been! 

Marissa, a multi-discipline artist and radio DJ, has worked hard to revitalize relationships between the Opera and its volunteers. She’s also introduced an exciting new performing arts production internship in collaboration with Northern New Mexico College. 

So, how do you quantify the generous contributions of time and talent to organizational well-being? Maybe it’s better to ask why volunteer in the first place? “It's something that has really helped me find meaning and connection with the community, tap deeper into myself, and keep me ticking,” Marissa says. It’s safe to say that the 200+ folks who volunteer their time, talents, and energy to the Opera on an annual basis enjoy similar fulfillment.

Marissa’s holistic approach captures the optimism and desire for accessibility that defines the post-pandemic era of volunteerism. “I view my job as building relationships,” she says. The new internship further supports that goal on a deeply communal level. “There is recruitment (for the Opera’s prestigious apprenticeship programs) happening far from Santa Fe. Our idea was to take people that are local to the community, maybe coming from underserved places, and give them this opportunity to learn really valuable skills for their future careers directly from our staff.” 

There are many ways to contribute your talents and time to the Santa Fe Opera. Why not fill out an application and see how you can get connected?


MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Northern New Mexico College

KMRD-LP 96.9 FM

***

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 & Anna Garcia

Audio Engineer: Kabby at Kabby Sound Studios in Santa Fe

Technical Director: Edwin R. Ruiz

Production Support from Alex Riegler

Show Notes by 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 Hankins Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and an Opera America Innovation Grant supported by the Anne & Gordon Getty Foundation.  

To learn more about Opera For All Voices, visit SantaFeOpera.org. And for more Key Change, visit SantaFeOpera.org/KeyChange.