Laura Kaminsky’s Opera, "As One," Premieres at BAM


VCCA Fellow Laura Kaminsky’s opera, As One, commissioned by American Opera Projects, with a libretto by Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed, as well as a film by Kimberly Reed, will have its premiere at BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) September 4-7 (BAM Fisher).

As One explores the journey of a transgender individual wrestling with core personal and philosophical questions. Written for mezzo soprano Sasha Cooke and baritone Kelly Markgraf, who together share the role of the protagonist, are joined by the Fry Street Quartet, As One challenges traditional conceptions of performance while addressing the complex issues confronted by a significant outsider population whose civil and humans rights are compromised by society. Kaminsky has been awarded an inaugural Opera America Discovery Grant, a BAM/Kennedy Center De Vos Institute Grant, and additional support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council of the Arts for the opera.

Kaminsky teaches composition at the Conservatory of Music at Purchase College/SUNY. She has served as artistic director of Symphony Space in New York and has also held posts at such other prestigious institutions as the 92nd Y, Town Hall and The New School in New York and Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle. Kaminsky has lived and worked in such diverse places as Ghana, where she taught at the National Academy of Music and Poland, where she was the artistic director of the European Mozart Academy.


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