Event Details
When:
-
Location:
In-Person at WWU:
Viking Union
Multi-Purpose Room
Price:
Free
Brought to you by:
WWU Department of Music in collaboration with Theatre & Dance Department, College of Fine and Performing Arts, WWU Alumni Association
Description
WWU's Departments of Music and Theater & Dance would like you to join in a celebration of the achievements of students and faculty across both departments with our spring production of Street Scene, music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Langston Hughes, based on the Pulitzer prize-winning play by Elmer Rice and featuring the Western Opera Studio and the Western Symphony Orchestra.
We invite our WWU Music and Theatre & Dance alums on the I-5 corridor to join us for an on-campus reception prior to the opening show on April 14th at 6:00 pm. Come have a drink on us (feel free to bring your +1) and reconnect with friends and professors, including faculty from both departments as well as Emeritus professors Maureen O’Reilly and Jim Lortz.
We will share what's new in the WWU College of Fine and Performing Arts and celebrate the recent accomplishments of students and faculty as you raise a glass and reconnect with Western.
After the reception we hope you will join us in the Mainstage Theatre to experience and enjoy this powerful opera together.
Purchasing Tickets for Street Scene
If you would like to attend the 7:30pm performance of Street Scene at the WWU Performing Arts Center Mainstage, tickets are available for purchase at $20 per person.
Featuring:
Heather Dudenbostel, Director
Assistant Professor of Voice and Dramatic Arts | Opera Theater Director
Soprano Heather Dudenbostel is a versatile singing actress, voice teacher, and stage director maintaining an active career on both coasts. As a stage director, Dudenbostel made her Carnegie Hall debut with the NYC-based Pacific Opera’s Great Moments in Opera. She served as director (and soprano soloist) in Robert Kapilow’s Green Eggs and Ham and White Christmas in concert with the Bellingham Symphony Orchestra and has staged numerous WWU Theatre and Music Department Mainstage productions, including A Little Night Music, Kiss Me Kate, and The Secret Garden. Dudenbostel also created the WWU workshop Blackbox Musical Theatre and directed their culminating cabaret Exploring Sondheim. With the WWU Opera Theater, she produced and directed Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges and the Northwest premiere of William Bolcom’s Lucrezia—coinciding with the composer’s residency at WWU in 2018 as well as Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld, and the National Opera Association award-winning production of Puccini's Suor Angelica and Carlisle Floyd's Slow Dusk in 2022. As a vocal pedagogue, Dudenbostel’s approach is rooted in helping students develop a healthy, efficient, and balanced production of sound for a lifetime of beautiful singing. Dudenbostel holds degrees from NYU and Western Washington University. She is also a member of NATS and NOA.
Mark Davies, Music Director
Senior Instructor, Voice, Opera
Baritone Mark Davies has been an active performer throughout the Puget Sound region since relocating to Washington from the Midwest in 2014. He was heard most recently as Ping in Turandot with Pacific Northwest Opera in Mount Vernon, where he will also be performing the role of Schaunard in their upcoming 2018 production of La bohème. He has also worked with the Marrowstone Music Festival, Tacoma Opera, Bellevue City Opera Ballet, and Indiana University Opera Theater, having performed such roles as Ben in Menotti’s The Telephone, Captain Corcoran in HMS Pinafore, Albert in Werther, Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, and Papageno in Die Zauberflöte. Davies is also an active concert and recital artist, most recently putting on a performance of Wolf’s complete Italienisches Liederbuch at Western Washington University. He has also performed works including Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder and Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Handel’s Messiah, and Mozart’s Vesperae solennes de confessore. When he is not singing, Davies is also a highly-regarded pianist and vocal coach, and has worked with and accompanied artists who appear at opera houses across the country and internationally. He currently lives in Bellingham, Washington, where he is an instructor of voice and music director of the opera program at Western Washington University. He is a doctoral candidate in vocal performance and literature at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, where he was a student of Andreas Poulimenos and Timothy Noble.
Ryan Dudenbostel, Conductor
Director of Orchestral Studies
Ryan Dudenbostel serves as Director of Orchestral Studies at Western Washington University, where he conducts the WWU Symphony Orchestra, serves as Graduate Advisor, and teaches courses in conducting, music theory, and music history. He is also the director of the WWU new music ensemble NowHearThis! Prior to joining the faculty at Western, he served as the Music Director of the El-Sistema-based Santa Monica Youth Orchestra. He conducts regularly on the Jacaranda new music series in Los Angeles, and has recently been appointed Interim Artistic Director of the Marrowstone Music Festival. He also served for three seasons as a rehearsal and cover conductor at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City, preparing the student orchestras for such eminent conductors as Philippe Entremont, Yoav Talmi, Kent Tritle, H. Robert Reynolds, and Kenneth Kiesler. He is a graduate of UCLA, the University of Missouri—Kansas City Conservatory, and Western Washington University, and has studied conducting with Neal Stulberg, Robert Olson, David Wallace, Kenneth Kiesler, Gustav Meier and Rossen Milanov.
Accommodations and Other Details
Contact Christopher Bianco for this event. Feel free to email at Christopher.Bianco@wwu.edu if you have any questions or comments.
Advance notice for disability accommodations and special needs is greatly appreciated. Please indicate your special needs on the registration form.
There will be auto-captions available for the Zoom webinar.
Limited parking is available in the C lots at the south end of campus and in lots 6V and 7G at the north end of campus. Western provides comprehensive parking details—including lot locations, applicable fees, and campus map.