Points Unknown: Exploring Our Relationship To Otherness Through The Pigeon Keeper Key Change

To workshop a new opera in front of an audience is a little like agreeing to a trust fall: at some point, you’ve just got to surrender to the unknown and… trust.
Andrea Fellows Fineberg and Anna Garcia return to the orchestral workshop for The Pigeon Keeper, a collaboration between Santa Fe Opera’s Opera For All Voices (OFAV) initiative and the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance (SMTD).
Andrea and Anna introduce folks to Caitlin Lynch, Assistant Professor of Music at U-M, and Jayce Ogren, Director of Contemporary Directions Ensemble at U-M, the visionary duo responsible for bringing The Pigeon Keeper to the campus. Together they go behind the scenes of OperaLab, their new initiative to connect SMTD students with opportunities to workshop and perform contemporary music from living composers.
They also explore how the themes of the opera connect to modern realities with student musicians; learn about community support for refugees, asylum seekers, and others seeking humanitarian protection with Freedom House Detroit; and find out what advice principal artists would give to future cast members. 
The episode ends with audience reflections on loss, exclusion, and opera as a catalyst for hard conversation. “The arts,” said one workshop goer, “can facilitate tangible action, dialogue, and change that can come from this emotionally resonating work.” It’s insights like this that keep OFAV commissioning new works and collaborating in inventive ways. 
Learn more about Freedom House Detroit at freedomhousedetroit.org.
FEATURING:
Rebecca Clark - Cover for Orsia
Ava Hawkins - Ensemble
Jamiyah Hudson - Ensemble 
Tyrese Byrd - Cover for The Pigeon Keeper
Caitlin Lynch - Assistant Professor of Music at U-M
Jayce Ogren - Director of Contemporary Directions Ensemble at U-M
David Hanlon - Composer, The Pigeon Keeper 
Daniel Millan - Clarinet 
Lulu Nester, Engagement Coordinator, Freedom House Detroit 
David Siebert, volunteer, Freedom House Detroit
Nathan Harah - Kosmo 
Bernard Holcomb - The Pigeon Keeper, The Widow Grocer, The Schoolteacher
And numerous students and audience members.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
Arts Initiative at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance
SMTD OperaLab
Contemporary Directions Ensemble
Butler Houston Grand Opera Studio
Freedom House Detroit
The House On Mango Street opera
University Philharmonia Orchestra
THE PIGEON KEEPER CREATIVE TEAM:
David Hanlon, Composer
Stephanie Fleischmann, Librettist
Kelly Kuo, Music Director And Conductor
RELATED EPISODES:
Season 2 Episode 4 - Hope Is the Thing With Feathers: A first look at The Pigeon Keeper
Season 4 Episode 4 - In a Room Making Music With People: The Pigeon Keeper with Stephanie Fleischmann and David Hanlon
Season 4 Episode 9 - Competing Interest: How Do You Workshop a New Opera?
Season 5 Episode 5 - Music Born Out of a Modern Experience: The Pigeon Keeper Orchestral Workshop
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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 & 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.