John Aylward

Come check out Boston Musica Viva performing Ephemera on September 23rd and / or Mark Berger and Don Berman performing Images of Departure at Brandeis University on October 7th.

When I’m back from Japan, I’ll post more upcoming performances!

Thanks to all who helped out on such an amazing premiere of Angelus Novus last week at Le Laboratoire. It was an incredible experience to work with many friends and collaborators on a piece that’s become very personal and important, both through the writing and through the collaborations and relationships it sparked. I hope if you find your way here, you’ll give the piece a listen / look.

The project was made very special by Roberta Michel, flutes; Hassan Anderson, oboe; Jennifer Choi, violin; Carlos Cordiero, clarinets; John Popham, cello; and Sam Budish, percussion. Also four special friends: Jean-Philippe Wurtz, conductor; Colin Gee, choreography and dance; Alex Posen, costumes; and Steven Taylor and Sam Okerstrom-Lang, visual / animation designers.

I’m speechless after receiving a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation. This is once-in-a-lifetime support and I hope to use the time wisely for upcoming projects — the first being an ongoing commission from the Fromm Foundation, which I hope to premiere in the spring of 2018 (more on that soon!) and the second being a new ballet, Angelus Novus.

I’ll workshop part of Angelus Novus this May 19th at Le Laboratoire, Cambridge. For more on that, you can check out the event page.

I’m grateful to receive this honor and am thankful to all who have been supportive.

Honored to be one of this year’s Fromm Music Foundation commissioned composers. In with some great company of very talented individuals and happy to considered among them. I’ll be using the grant to write a piece that culminates my recent body of work based on Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

From The Etchings Festival.

“… as a breath of wind or some echo rebounds from smooth surfaces and returns to the source from which it issued, so the stream of beauty passes back into its possessor through his eyes, its natural route to the soul; arriving there and setting him aflutter, it waters the passages of the feathers and causes the wings to grow, and fills the soul of the loved one in his turn with love.”

— Plato. Phaedrus.

Thanks to all who made Switch such an amazing success! Some reviews here and here, and for all the details, check out switchopera.com. More soon! But in the meantime, if you’re up for some new music, come to the Boston Conservatory on March 4th, 8PM to hear Eric Hewitt perform Compulsive Loves. And more updates for March and April soon!

It’s here! Hard to believe the new opera is upon us! Come one, come all!

Details:

• Switch An Opera-Theater piece by yours truly.
• The amazing Amanda DeBoer Bartlett and Mikhail Smigelski star!
• Directed by the equally amazing Laine Rettmer!
•  Where? At the fascinating Kendall Square Gallery Le Laboratoire!
• Check here for showtimes and tickets.

See you there!

A quick dispatch from MacDowell where I’m deep in autumn, nested in the woods and finishing Switch.