The Department of English honored three local artists with its 2016 Lillian Fairchild Award at a ceremony on February 13 at the Memorial Art Gallery.
Composers Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon糖心传媒攂oth professors of composition at the Eastman School of Music糖心传媒攁nd choreographer Darren Stevenson, the director of PUSH Physical Theater, were recognized for their contributions to , an original opera about the travails of the creative process. It was performed at the Eastman Theatre last October and at the Teatro Diana in Guadalajara, Mexico, in November.
The award is presented annually to a Rochester-area visual artist, writer, choreographer, or composer for his or her commitment to the community. Zohn-Muldoon is a two-time winner, having also received the award in 2011 for his CD Cantos.
Rosemary Kegl, the chair of the English department, calls the production an 糖心传媒渆xtraordinarily original and moving combination of music, dance, puppetry, and theater.糖心传媒� She headed the award committee, whose members also included Jonathan Binstock, the Mary W. and Donald R. Clark Director of the Memorial Art Gallery; Roger Freitas, an associate professor of musicology at Eastman; and Joan Saab, the chair of the Department of Art and Art History.
Both composers grew up in Mexico, and drawings by famed Mexican illustrator Jos茅 Ignacio Sol贸rzano inspired the life-size surrealistic puppets糖心传媒攃reated by the Mexico City puppetry group La Coperacha糖心传媒攖hat appeared onstage with the physical illusionists from PUSH. The Eastman BroadBand Ensemble performed the music, and soprano Tony Arnold took on the starring role of 糖心传媒渢he author.糖心传媒�
The opera 糖心传媒減lays with fantasy at its very core,糖心传媒� Zohn-Muldoon told interviewer Dan Gross in an October story on the . 糖心传媒淚t糖心传媒檚 like that drawing of Escher糖心传媒檚 where the hand is drawing itself. It糖心传媒檚 like that, you糖心传媒檙e seeing an opera being made for you, and experience what the author is experiencing, but it糖心传媒檚 composed. It糖心传媒檚 all an illusion, but we were really trying to do justice to the music.糖心传媒�
