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(3/14/06) More rave reviews for the world premiere of Our Town have appeared. Click here to read them. |
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(2/27/06) New York Times — BLOOMINGTON, Ind., Feb. 25 — OUR TOWN WORLD PREMIERE "Aaron Copland wanted to make it an opera. So did Leonard Bernstein. But Thornton Wilder, the author of Our Town, turned both composers down. Now, 68 years after it was written and 30 years after Wilder's death, the play has made it to the opera stage. Our Town, with music by Ned Rorem and a libretto by J. D. McClatchy, received its premiere here on Friday evening by the Indiana University Opera Theater, one of six commissioners of this opera." more>>>. |
 (Photo courtesy of Indiana University) |
(1/6/06) Ned's opera OUR TOWN (on J.D. McClatchy's libretto) is set for world premiere at Indiana University during February and March. The cornerstone of this year's IU Opera Theater season and the 2006 ArtsWeek celebration is based on Thornton Wilder's 1938 Pulitzer-prize winning play. Other productions of the opera are slated for Opera Boston, the Aspen Music Festival and School, North Carolina School of the Arts, Lake George Opera in Upstate New York, and Festival Opera in Walnut Creek, California. For more information, click HERE. |
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(12/20/05) Nine Episodes for Four Players has been nominated for a 2005 Grammy in the 'Best Classical Contemporary Composition' category (105). The recording by the Contrasts Quartet, which also includes recordings of Dances and Spring Music, is on the Phoenix USA label (PHCD 163). Click here or on the picture to the left to order a copy online. |
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(11/28/05) Book project 'Ode aan de Kolossale Zon' (Ode to the Colossal Sun). From 1999 till 2004 Helga Kos worked full-time on the designing and the printing of an extensive book. ?Ode aan de Kolossale Zon? an artist's book with cd, is based on Ned Rorem?s cycle of songs Last Poems of Wallace Stevens. It consists of 150 pages of graphical art. Within the book, as a graphical element, is incorporated the CD with ?Last Poems?, performed by Wendingen. Typography Josje Pollmann, in a numbered and signed edition of 288. Click here to learn more about the project. |
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(7/25/05) The new documentary film
Ned Rorem: Word & Music
will be shown
2:00 PM, Wednesday, August 10, 2005
as part of
Rhode Island International Film Festival
Jane Pickens Theatre
49 Touro St.
New Port, RI
for tickets please call:
(866) 733-8497.
For additional information please visit www.sleepinanestofflames. The directors, James Dowell & John Kolomvakis will be present at the screening |
 (Photo courtesy of Gilda Lyons) |
(7/12/05) Ned reading at Barnes and Noble's 88th & Broadway store in New York City to a gathering of about sixty. Ned read for a half hour, then signed copies of his new book of letters Wings of Friendship (see below). The next reading will take place on Nantucket on July 20th at the Athenium Library, 8 PM. |
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(6/1/05) The new documentary film Ned Rorem: Word & Music will be shown at the Frameline Festival, San Francisco, CA The Victoria Theatre 11:00 AM Sunday, June 19, 2005 for tickets please call: (415) 703-8650 for additional information please visit www.sleepinanestofflames. The directors, James Dowell & John Kolomvakis will be present at the screening |
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(3/28/05) When it comes to letter writing, do artists resemble their letters? Yes, except when they don't. So wrote Ned Rorem in his 1998 review of Prokofiev’s letters. Over the years Rorem has shown us the craft of self-examination in his five elegant and moving diaries that span the last eight decades. But besides the publication of his correspondence between himself and Paul Bowles, he has never published the vast correspondence he shared with a sublime mix of people—Leontyne Price, Virgil Thomson, Reynolds Price, Angela Lansbury, Judy Collins, Gore Vidal, Cynthia Ozick. In Wings of Friendship, Rorem’s letters to these friends and to more than 40 others are assembled in chronological order and reveal the range of his interests and the depth of his passions—a heart laid bare through billets-doux. Click on the cover of the book to the left for more information. |
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(3/25/05) Chamber Opera Series Tom Cultice, director. Two Chamber Operas by Ned Rorem, A Childhood Miracle, based on the The Snow Image by Hawthorne. Originally written for the Metropolitan Opera's outreach program. Three Sisters Who Are Not Sisters, based on a melodrama by Gertrude Stein which follows several children at play and the often dark places their imaginations take them. |
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(3/25/05) Encompass New Opera Theatre celebrates the vision/genius of Gertrude Stein with Ned Rorem?s Three Sisters Who Are Not Sisters, Virgil Thomson?s Capital Capitals, both pieces with witty texts by Stein herself, and the world premiere of composer William C. Banfield and poet Karren LaLonde Alenier's jazz opera, Gertrude Stein Invents a Jump Early On, with chamber orchestra. A must-see evening!!! Tickets: $35 regular; Senior/student/group discounts available. Telephone Box Office at 212-864-5400 (Tues-Sun, 11am to 7pm); or order online 24 hours a day at www.symphonyspace.org; or www.tickets.com. AmEx, MC, Visa, Discover. Or in person at ticket window, main lobby of Symphony Space, open Tues-Sun, 12 noon to 7pm. |
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(12/1/04) Symbiosis Films (Jim Dowell and John Kolomvakis) presents the world premiere screening of Ned Rorem: Words & Music on 13 December at Florence Gould Hall in New York City. Tickets are available from Ticketron and from the Florence Gould Box Office. Click here for more information. |
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(1/12/04) Ned, with Susan Graham, at the French Embassy. French Cultural Counselor Jean-Ren? Gehan presented Ned Rorem with the medal of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters. Click here for an excellent article about it. |
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(12/9/03) Ned, with George Weiss and Lee Adams, having just received ASCAP's Lifetime Achievement Award at Lincoln Center. |
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(12/4/03) Backstage at the Philadelphia Orchestra, following the premiere of Ned's Flute Concerto, 4-6 December 2003. (l. to r.) Conductor Roberto Abbado, Ned, and soloist Jeffrey Khaner. |
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(12/1/03) Ned's Three Symphonies on Naxos is nomintaed for three Grammys -- 'Best Classical Album', 'Best Orchestral Performances', and 'Best Engineered Album, Classical.' Ned is Awarded the French Legion of Honor. |
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(10/18/03) Alex Ross has written an excellent appreciation of Ned's career and work entitled "The Gentleman Composer" in the October 20th issue of the New Yorker Magazine. Click here to read it. (External links are good for a limited period.) |
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(9/21/03) The Curtis Institue presents Roremania, a major festival of Ned's music. Click here for more information about this exciting celebration! |
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(9/9/03) The Arizona Republic has named the new Naxos release of Ned's Symphony Nos. 1 & 2 their "Pick of the Week." Read Kenneth LaFave's review here. |
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(8/24/03) Joseph Dalton has written an excellent new profile of Ned in the Albany Times Union in which Ned announces that he is writing an opera based on Thornton Wilder's play Our Town with a libretto by Sandy McClatchy. Click here to read it. |
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(9/11/03) The San Francisco Chronicle has published an excellent new interview with Ned in tandem with the performance there by the San Francisco Symphony of Ned's Sunday Morning. Click here to read it. |
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Ned accompanies Carole Farley in a lovely new CD of artsongs. Click here to order it online. |
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The Fibonacci Sequence has released a new CD of Ned's chamber works on Naxos Records. Click here to order it online. |
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Susan Graham's new CD of Ned's songs continues to perform well in stores. Click here to buy it online. |
