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Composition Articles

FRANKENSTEIN OPERA

 

New York Times Feature:

‘We Feel a Kinship With the Creature’(25 October, 2018)

Sharing NY Times pages with the likes of Mel Brooks and John Logan – having a celebratory Frankenstein bicentennial monster mash-up. Setting the stage for our Frankenstein opera @ La Monnaie, Brussels March 2019.
                                     

Opera Wire – 10 Must See Operas In 2019

Opera Wire – Feature: Mark Grey

Reuters – Frankenstein Opera Preview

Los Angeles Times – Want the West Coast’s best in opera? You have to go to Europe

Meet The Artist – Feature: Mark Grey

Metro Active – Silicon Alleys Feature: Mark Grey

Opera Wire – Q & A: Scott Hendricks On Frankenstein, Villains & Singing Modern Repertoire

Leonore & Fidelio Podcast – Interview-special with Mark Grey, Frankenstein, Operaguide.

Composition Today – Feature: Mark Grey Interview

L’Echo – Feature

Opera Magazine – Feature

Forum Opera – Feature

Crescendo Magazine – Feature

Schmopera Feature – Talking With Composers: Mark Grey

The Buzludzha Monument – Feature

Opera Vision – A Resource for Teachers

Frankenstein Symphony


‘Frankenstein,’ a symphony by Mark Grey, comes to Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall
Marin Independent Journal, 4/25/16

Plentiful Peach


Los Angeles Children’s Chorus Celebrates American Song at Annual Spring Concert
: Features World Premiere by Peter Knell and Los Angeles Premiere by Mark Grey, Both Commissioned by Chorus, Patch.com, 4/26/15

“The work is adapted from a story by the noted Iranian writer Samad Behrangi (1939-1968). The Plentiful Peach is the coming of age story of a peach and the brave children who secretly grow her. Grey’s music has been hailed as ‘addictive’ (Los Angeles Times), ‘revelatory’ (All Music) and ‘full of energy’ (Sequenza 21).”

World & LA Premieres Set for LA Children’s Chorus Spring Concerts in MayBroadway World, 4/17/15

The Plentiful Peach Mashes Ideology and Art in Imaginative PerformanceMetroActive, 4/15/15

Young voices raised in song — Los Angeles Children’s Chorus and San Francisco Girls Chorus both performing world premieres, The Mercury News, 4/13/15

Premiere of Mark Grey and Niloufar Talebi’s “The Plentiful Peach” at StanfordPayvand, 3/31/15

AHSHA: Fanfare for Orchestra


Spano and Runnicles celebrate their partnership with Mozart, a world premiere (and don’t forget Bruckner)
, ArtsCriticATL.com, 1/27/11

“About ‘Ahsha,’ Grey writes: ‘In celebration of Robert Spano and Donald Runnicles’ tenth-anniversary season in Atlanta, I wanted the subject of this work to embrace Robert’s passion for Persia, its people, culture and art.'”

Mugunghwa: Rose of Sharon


Poignant Songs for a People Divided
Wall Street Journal, 3/3/11

“(Grey) says that pursuing such themes gives him an opportunity to explore the American fabric. ‘I wanted to look at the home base—what this land was built upon,’ he explains. ‘I come from European stock. It’s a way to educate myself about the wider world in which I live. After all, we’re all children of migration. Every time you pass someone on the street, there is a hidden history there. I hope my work affords people who are not from these cultures a moment of real connection.'”

Mugung-what?LA Weekly, 3/3/11

“Written for violin virtuoso Jennifer Koh and the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Mugunghwa is ‘a story of courage and passion’ that blends Korean and Western cultural and musical traditions into a unique soundscape, and is based on Korean author Namsoo Kim’s chronicle of one man’s spiritual path to reunification with his family, homeland and dead father.”

Mark Grey’s ‘Mugunghwa’ traces a Korean journey, Los Angeles Times, 2/27/11

“Jennifer’s violin is an extended voice of the chorus,” Grey said, “dancing, enticing, teasing, scolding, bribing and loving — how a mudang, or tribal shaman, performs during a traditional ceremony.” For Koh, the beauty of “Mugunghwa” is in its attempt to create bridges between people, and between past and present. “One can’t live in the present, or even look forward, without also looking back,” she said. “For me, art has always served as the shaman for the future.”

LA Master Chorale Presents MUGUNGHWA 3/6, Broadwayworld.com, 2/8/11

“Mark Grey is a composer for whom I have tremendous admiration,” says Gershon. “His piece, Mugunghwa, is a major new choral work – poetic, intense, and sonorous. It sparkles with fantastically colorful harmonies that respond beautifully to the poetry and the personal letters Mark has chosen to set to music. Audiences will love Mark’s storytelling, his fascinating and accessible music, as well as the interplay of virtuosic chorus and violin solo. This is an extraordinary new work that I am exceedingly proud to premiere with the Master Chorale.”

Articles in Korea Times (pdfs):
KoreaTimes_Mugunghwa_1
KoreaTimes_Mugunghwa_2

TWENTY (part of Shared Madness)


Violinist Jennifer Koh Commissions 32 Works for Solo Violin for ‘Shared Madness,’
 Strings Magazine, 5/24/16

Enemy Slayer: A Navajo Oratorio


Native American Journeys (pdf)
Symphony Magazine, May/June 2009

Celebrating Navajo StoriesDenver Post, July 2008

“It celebrates Navajo stories,” said Navajo poet Laura Tohe, who wrote the work’s libretto. “It celebrates the oral traditions that are still alive and are still strong and that still sustain. And I think this oratorio does that in a contemporary way.”

“The way it works with indigenous storytelling and connects with a Western musical art form, it created something very beautiful, something very powerful and something that spoke to a large audience.”

The Mother of Enemy Slayer, Paste Magazine, 7/2/08

“Enemy Slayer: A Navajo Oratorio—a 70-minute classical work—premiered in February with the Phoenix Symphony. Its first performance prompted a 10-minute standing ovation and sent some from the hall weeping into handkerchiefs.”

Navajo oratorio updates creation tale, The Arizona Republic, February 2008

Mark Grey’s cutting-edge classical work Enemy Slayer explores a Navajo creation storyPhoenix New Times, February 2008

A Native-Inspired Symphony in Phoenix (pdf), Native Peoples

Healing Words: Musical statement on the human cost of war fuses Indigenous themes with classical forms (pdf), Arizona State University newsletter, Spring 2008

Non-Native Son: Composer comes home to a place he’s never been before, Phoenix New Times, February 2008

Enemy Way inspires musical collaboration, Navajo Times, October 2007

The Phoenix Symphony’s Enemy Slayer brochure (pdf)

The Phoenix Symphony’s Enemy Slayer blog

Colorado Music Festival’s Enemy Slayer press release (pdf)

For videos on the making of Enemy Slayer, visit the Multimedia page.

Sound Design Articles

Opera America (Cover Feature)

Sound Design (Fall 2018)

           
New York Times

Pipe Down! (Sound at Met Opera, 2006)

                  
Mix Magazine Feature

The Kronos Quartet (2002)

       

Doctor Atomic or: How John Adams Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Sound Design

by Ryan Ebright

Read full article here

              
Lighting and Sound America (Feature)

Doctor Atomic in the Desert (2018)

              
Live Design Feature

Grey Matter: Sound in Dr Atomic (2005)

               
Meyer Sound Feature

Doctor Atomic @ Santa Fe Opera (2018)

              
Los Angeles Times (Feature)

Sound Reasoning? (2003)