Contact:	Fred Knubel						FOR IMMEDIATE USE
		Director of Public Information
		212-854-5573, fhk1@columbia.edu



American Opera Tradition To Be Celebrated
In Concert at Columbia April 6
______________________________________________

Young Opera Vocalists of Today Will Perform Works 
Pioneered at the University at Mid-Century

	Columbia University on April 6 will salute the past with a view to the future 
of American opera.

	 In a special concert, accomplished young singers who represent new 
American vocal artistry will perform excerpts from operas that originated in the 
1940s and 1950s at Columbia, where American opera found an original voice.

	They will perform 12 unstaged opera excerpts beginning at 3 P.M. in 
Kathryn Bache Miller Theatre on the Columbia campus, Broadway at 116th 
Street, New York City, in a program titled "Opera at Columbia: A Celebration."

	Operas represented will include Virgil Thomson's and Gertrude Stein's 
The Mother of Us All, Gian-Carlo Menotti's The Medium, Jack Beeson's Hello 
Out There, Benjamin Britten's and W. H. Auden's Paul Bunyan, Douglas 
Moore's Pulitzer Prize-winning Giants In The Earth, and his Ballad of Baby Doe, 
Hugo Weisgall's Six Characters In Search Of An Author and Carlos Chavez's 
The Visitors.  In all, 21 music theater works were commissioned, written or 
premiered between 1941 and 1959 at Columbia, and music historians have called 
many of them pioneering contributions to the development of an American opera 
tradition.

	The concert is part of the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Columbia's 
Music Department, which was founded by Edward MacDowell and headed by 
Moore during the 1940s and 1950s.

	Jim Stepleton, composer and alumnus who organized the concert, credits 
Moore's energy and vision for Columbia's role in advancing opera here. 

	"He was a pivotal figure, as a composer of readily understandable and 
immensely enjoyable music and as a leader who created the enthusiasm, the 
space and the funding to develop new opera at the University," said Mr. Stepleton.  
"He was critical to American opera's rise in popularity and to the evolution of an 
art form."

	Moore brought musical theater performance into Brander Matthews Hall 
on campus, advanced the Columbia Opera Workshop for student and professional 
performers and directed Columbia's Alice M. Ditson Fund, which supported 
composers and productions.

	"The Opera Workshop and productions were an important part of the city's 
musical and dramatic life," Beeson recalled recently.  "It encouraged new works 
and ideas and the revival of neglected operas of interest to the University 
community and the New York public at large.  Equally important was the 
training given to conductors, stage directors and singing actors.  Among them 
were John Kander of Kander & Ebb, who wrote Chicago and whose Steel Pier 
opens April 21 on Broadway; John Crosby, who founded the Santa Fe Opera 
shortly after leaving the Workshop and has been its artistic director ever since, 
and Jacob Avshalomov, the recently retired composer-conductor of the Portland 
Junior Symphony."  Mr. Beeson himself, now the MacDowell Professor Emeritus 
at Columbia, went on to create many well-received operas, including Lizzie 
Borden and My Heart's in the Highlands.

	"This concert is far from a project in musical archaeology," said Walter 
Frisch, professor of music and chairman of the Music Department's centennial 
committee.  "It brings to life a critical part of the past, not only of Columbia but of 
a whole era in American music."

	Mr. Crosby of the Santa Fe Opera said:  "Whenever and wherever devoted 
artists are led to work together, significant things will happen.  This was 
Columbia in the 1940s and 50s."

	The Friends and Enemies of New Music, which encourages contemporary 
music performance, is producing the concert.  Its president, composer Tom 
Cipullo, who with Jeanne Golan will be a piano accompanist, said:

	"A review of American opera from the middle of this century is an 
inspiration and model for the future.  It will give the audience a rare opportunity 
to see the full, varied potential of opera through the works of a generation of 
composers who integrated music and story in a way that truly spoke to all lovers 
of the operatic medium."

	The concert artists and a selection of their performances:

	
 Soprano Jeanette Thompson and mezzo-soprano Amy Ellen Anderson, 
who will sing the parts of Susan B. Anthony and her companion discussing the 
difference between the sexes from The Mother Of Us All.  Ms. Thompson is the 
winner of the Gold Medal at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels and has 
appeared as soloist with the Belgium Radio Orchestra, St. Luke's Chamber 
Orchestra and Aspen Opera Orchestra; Ms. Anderson has been featured with the 
Aspen Opera Theatre, Chamber Opera Chicago and the Chicago Opera Theatre 
and has an upcoming Carnegie Hall debut.

	
 Lyric soprano Bethany Hodges, who will sing Monica's Waltz from The 
Medium.  She will be the featured soprano soloist on a recording of Handel's 
Messiah with the Choir and Orchestra of Trinity Church, to be released this 
summer.

	
 Lyric baritone Peter Stewart, who will sing "I'm a gambler" from Hello 
Out There.  He has performed with the Santa Fe Opera and toured Europe, Japan 
and Australia with Philip Glass and Robert Wilson in Einstein On The Beach.

	
 Lyric tenor David Blackburn and bass Robert Osborne, who will sing the 
Cook's Duet from Paul Bunyan.  Mr. Blackburn recently appeared as soloist in 
Tel-Aviv and performed Poulenc songs in Stuttgart and American songs in 
Salzburg.  Mr. Osborne was featured in the PBS Great Performances program 
"Bernstein at 70" and has had concert appearances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln 
Center, Royal Albert Hall and Moscow's Tchaikovsky Hall.


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