MTA Composer Forums present Keeril Makan in a talk about his new chamber opera Persona.
Persona, a new chamber opera based on Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 classic film, composed by Keeril Makan, with direction and libretto by Jay Scheib, previews at MIT in a workshop performance at 8pm on October 17 at Rinaldi, E33. Rome Prize winner Makan and Obie-award winner Scheib — both MIT faculty — audaciously transplant Persona’s famously provocative and complex depiction of human frailty, cruelty and identity into operatic form.
The fully staged production premieres at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, NY, Oct. 23-24. The opera is being produced by Beth Morrison of Beth Morrison Projects (BMP), conducted by Evan Ziporyn, and stars soprano Amanda Crider.
About Keeril Makan
Keeril Makan, Associate Professor of Music. Described by The New Yorker as “an arrestingly gifted young American composer,” and by The New York Times as “consistently stimulating,” The Boston Globe portrays Keeril Makan as a composer “whose music deserves to be more widely heard.” Recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Luciano Berio Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, he has also received awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Howard Foundation, the Fromm Foundation, Meet the Composer, the Aaron Copland House, the Utah Arts Festival, the Fulbright Program, and ASCAP. His work has been commissioned by the Bang on a Can All-Stars, American Composers Orchestra, Harvard Musical Association, and Carnegie Hall, among others.
His CDs, In Sound (Tzadik), Target (Starkland), and Afterglow (Mode) include performances by the Kronos Quartet, Either/Or, and the International Contemporary Ensemble. Persona, his opera, written for Alarm Will Sound and produced by Beth Morrison, is an adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s classic film, with a libretto by Jay Scheib. Schott is publishing his compositions. Makan was raised in New Jersey by parents of South African Indian and Russian Jewish descent. After training as a violinist, he received degrees in composition and religion from Oberlin and completed his PhD in composition at the University of California–Berkeley, with additional studies in Helsinki and Paris
