Lumee's Dream

Ellen Reid is one of the most innovative artists of her generation. A composer and sound artist whose breadth of work spans opera, sound design, film scoring, ensemble and choral writing, she was awarded the the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her opera prism, which premiered as part of the LA Opera Off Grand series.

Along with composer Missy Mazzoli, Ellen co-founded the Luna Composition Lab, a mentorship program for young, female-identifying, non-binary, and gender non-conforming composers. Since the fall of 2019, she has served as Creative Advisor and Composer-in-Residence for Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.

Ellen received her BFA from Columbia University and her MA from California Institute of the Arts. She is inspired by music from all over the globe, and she splits her time between her two favorite cities – Los Angeles and New York. Her music is released on Decca Gold. Learn more at EllenReidMusic.com.

Roxie Perkins is an artist who writes and directs for theater, opera, television and film.

She is the librettist of Ellen Reid's Pulitzer Prize-winning opera prism. Together they also won the Music Critics Association of North America's 2019 "Best New Opera" Award. Director James Darrah's production of prism is currently a nominee for “Best World Premiere” at the International Opera Awards of 2020. The opera was released as an album through Universal's Decca Gold label and was featured on NPR’s list of the “Best Classical Music of the Decade.”

Roxie has been awarded a Sundance Playwright Fellowship, and her plays have been a semi-finalist for the Eugene O'Neill National Theatre Conference as well as for the Princess Grace Award. Her writing has been nominated to The Kilroy's "THE LIST" and We For She’s “WriteHer List,” annual rankings of the best unproduced plays and original TV pilots by women. She directed Green Umbrella: Theatre of the Outrageous, a program of three short operas performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Her work has been programmed at the Kennedy Center's Direct Current Festival, REDCAT, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, New York Philharmonic, Jazz at Lincoln Center, PROTOTYPE Festival, LA Opera, Opera Omaha's ONE Festival, Cutting Ball Theater, A Noise Within's "Noise Now" Artist Residency, Crowded Fire Theater's Matchbox Reading Series, The Tank NYC, The LARK’s Roundtable Reading Series, On The Verge Summer Repertory Theater, and internationally at Theatro Municipal in São Paulo. A production of prism in São Paulo was nominated for the 2019 Prêmio CONCERTO Award for Best Opera Production in Brazil. Roxie has worked as a Visiting Lecturer at CalArts and UCLA's School of Theatre, Film, and Television, as well as a Teaching Artist at Berkeley Repertory School of Theatre.

 Learn more at RoxiePerkins.com.

James Darrah's visually and emotionally arresting work at the intersection of theater, opera and film is currently in demand in venues all over the world. His productions of operas, theater, music videos, film and installations are known for their elegance with virtuosic and visceral "striking [work] that injects real drama" (New York Times), merging innovative design with unexpected movement, narrative heft and dance.

He is the newly named artistic director and chief creative officer of Long Beach Opera.

Current projects include debuts and new productions with the Kennedy Center, Theater an der Wien, Santa Fe Opera, Prototype Festival and Theatro Nacional São Paolo in Brazil. In 2020 he also creates an original art installation with composer Ellen Reid, filmmaker Adam Larsen and LA Opera and continues collaborations with Beth Morrison Projects, Opera Omaha/ ONE Festival and Opera Philadelphia as well as Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony where he will direct a new production of The Flying Dutchman with Tilson Thomas conducting and Frank Gehry designing. He is also currently in development for the new opera Dante with composer Patrick Cassidy and film producer Martha De Laurentiis, an expansion of Cassidy’s aria “Vide Cor Meum” originally written for the 2001 film Hannibal.

Recent highlights include developing and directing acclaimed productions of new operas including the world premieres of Reid's Pulitzer Prize-winning prism (premiered by LA Opera Off Grand in 2018) and Missy Mazzoli's Breaking the Waves and Proving Up, the New York premiere of Julian Wachner’s Rev23 in addition to Philip Glass' Les enfants terribles and the lauded West Coast premiere of Jennifer Higdon’s Cold Mountain. He has crafted music videos with “enigmatic twists” (NPR) for artists including Joyce DiDonato and Jakub Józef Orlinski on the Warner Music label, and produced a video for Mazzoli’s Grammy-award nominated Vespers.

Mr. Darrah is artistic director of the ONE Festival, where he is "expanding the boundaries of the operatic form" (Wall Street Journal) by framing opera in a context that is both inclusive and relevant while establishing a first of its kind operatic artist residency for myriad artists in the genre. He is also committed to training the next generation of singer and performer, joining the UCLA Faculty of the Herb Alpert School of Music in 2019 and was named the new creative director of Music Academy of the West’s Vocal Institute, where he has brought new productions of works and residences by myriad artists and contemporary composers Higdon, Mazzoli, Reid and Jonathan Dove and Kaija Saariaho.

Following his professional debut with Chicago Opera Theater, he has worked with Boston Lyric Opera, Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, The International Handel Festspiele, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Getty Villa Museum in Malibu, Salle Playel in Paris, Barbican Centre, Bard Summerscape and Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, Merola/ San Francisco Opera, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Tanglewood Music Festival, Pacific Musicworks, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, The Union for Contemporary Art, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and Teatro Nacional de Sao Carlos in Lisbon. He was co-artistic director/founder of Chromatic, a new collective of artists and production company in Los Angeles from 2014 to 2016, completed an MFA in Theater, Film and Television at UCLA and later continued studies with Stephen Wadsworth at The Juilliard School. He has received the national Princess Grace Award in Theater, the James Pendelton Foundation Grant, was a directing nominee in the 2015 International Opera Awards, has led world premieres of two operas to win “Best New Opera” awards from Music Critics Association of North America and was named Musical America’s New Artist of the Month for December 2015.

He was born in San Antonio, Texas and currently lives in Los Angeles.

Learn more at JamesDarrah.com.

Adam Larsen has designed video projections for over 200 productions in theater, dance, symphony and opera. Projects have ranged from intimate to extravagant and have appeared both on Broadway and in many of the major venues across the country. Adam’s multifaceted work has led to collaborations with leading voices in symphony and opera including including 25 projects with James Darrah, 15 projects with Michael Tilson Thomas, three with John Adams, as well as projects with Joni Mitchell, Janelle Monae, Esperanza Spalding, Louis Langrée, Christopher Rountree, Missy Mazzoli, and Ellen Reid.

Recent work includes the direction and design for a semi-staged production of Bluebeard's Castle at the Houston Symphony, and projections for the world premiere of David Lang's prisoner of the state at the New York Philharmonic.

Other designs include Hal Prince’s LoveMusik on Broadway; Missy Mazzoli’s Breaking the Waves at Opera Philadelphia and the Prototype Festival; Lee Breuer’s The Gospel at Colonus at the Athens, Edinburgh, and Spoleto festivals; Esperanza Spalding's 12 Little Spells national tour; Watermill at the BAM Next Wave Festival; Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle at the Singapore and Edinburgh festivals; Janáček’s From the House of the Dead at Canadian Opera; Bernstein’s Mass at the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Lincoln Center; Peter Grimes, On the Town and Boris Godunov, as well as all five seasons of the SoundBox series at San Francisco Symphony; The Pelleas Project at the Cincinnati Symphony; The Tales of Hoffmann at Hawaii Opera Theatre; Adams’s A Flowering Tree and Handel’s Agrippina at Opera Omaha; Foss’s Phorion with New World Symphony; and Mascagni’s Iris at Bard Summerscape.

In addition, Adam has directed two feature length documentaries about disability. His first, Neurotypical, about autism from the perspective of autistics, premiered on the the PBS series P.O.V and his second, Undersung, about caregivers of severely disabled family members, is available on Amazon.

Learn more at hum-bar.com.

Rebecca Jo Loeb recently returned to the Deutsche Oper Berlin for a staged production of Schönberg’s Pierrot Lunaire and Frasquita in Carmen, and to the New York Festival of Song to reprise Bernstein’s Arias and Barcarolles on tour to Boston and New Hampshire. She debuted with the Teatro Municipal de Santiago (Schoolboy/Groom in Lulu) and Theater Freiburg (Susan in Love Life) and returned to the Deutsche Oper Berlin (Second Maid in Elektra) and New York Festival of Song (Bernstein’s Arias and Barcarolles) on tour.

Violist Nadia Sirota’s varied career spans solo performances, chamber music, curation, and broadcasting. In all branches of her artistic life she aims to open classical music up to a broader audience. Nadia’s singular sound and expressive execution have served as muse to dozens of composers, including Nico Muhly, Bryce Dessner, Missy Mazzoli, Daníel Bjarnason, Judd Greenstein, Marcos Balter, and David Lang.

As a soloist, Nadia has appeared with acclaimed orchestras around the world, including the Detroit Symphony, Singapore Symphony, Colorado Symphony, the National Arts Centre and Spanish National Orchestras, and the Orchestre National d’Île-de-France. To date, she has released four solo albums of commissioned music, first things first (2009), Baroque (2013), Keep In Touch (2016), and Tessellatum (2017). Nadia is a member of Bedroom Community, a collective of musically diverse artists who work and collaborate at Reykjavik’s Greenhouse Studios. She has also lent her sound to recording and concert projects by such artists as The National, David Bowie and Björk.

Nadia is a member of the acclaimed chamber sextet yMusic. Their virtuosic execution and unique configuration have attracted high profile collaborators including Paul Simon, Ben Folds and Anohni, and inspired an expanding repertoire of original works by prominent composers including Andrew Norman, Caroline Shaw, and Chris Thile.

Since 2018, Nadia has served as the New York Philharmonic’s Creative Partner, a position created for her. In this role, she helped create and hosts two series: Nightcap and Sound ON, the latter of which she also curates. In addition, Nadia works with the Philharmonic on contemporary music initiatives across the organization. 

Ms. Sirota is the creator and host of Living Music with Nadia Sirota, a new podcast and concert series that demystifies classical music. She also serves as creative associate at The Juilliard School and as artist-in-residence at UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance.

Nadia won a 2015 Peabody Award, broadcasting’s highest honor, for her podcast Meet the Composer, which deftly profiled some of the most interesting musical thinkers living today. Ms. Sirota also received the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for her work in radio, and Southern Methodist University’s Meadows Prize, awarded to pioneering artists and scholars with an emerging international profile. She sits on the board of directors of Chamber Music America, the national service organization for ensemble music professionals. Nadia received her undergraduate and Master’s degrees from the Juilliard School, where she studied with Heidi Castleman, Misha Amory, and Hsin-Yun Huang.  

Learn more at NadiaSirota.com.

Sasha Rivero is a singer and dancer born and raised in a Belizean family in Los Angeles, California. Ms. Rivero is trained in ballet, modern, hip-hop, contemporary, and musical theater, and graduated with a B.A. in dance from UCLA’s dance department. Upon graduating, she fully submerged herself into the commercial and concert dance circuit, performing the works of Ezralow Dance, Ryan Heffington, and No)one. Art House. Ms. Rivero has been assistant choreographer and rehearsal director on several dance projects and has performed in television shows, music videos, and with LA Opera.

In 2020, Anna Schubert performed the role of Fury 1 in Julian Wachner's frenetic opera REV 23 at the Prototype Festival, in a new production by James Darrah. A lover of new music and performance, Anna recently created the role of Bibi in the world premiere of Ellen Reid's opera prism. It debuted at LA Opera in 2018 and was then presented at the Prototype Festival in 2019, directed by James Darrah and conducted by both Julian Wachner and Daniela Candillari, and garnered glowing reviews; Anna's performance was described as "revelatory" (Catherine Womack, I Care If You Listen). The opera won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Music, which led to an album release on the Decca Gold label, as well as several performances over the 2019/20 season at Theatro Municipal de São Paulo and the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

Anna Schubert made her debut on the LA new music scene with The Industry in 2015, singing the ethereal soprano role of L in Anne LeBaron's scenes from LSD: The Opera, first with Marc Lowenstein and Wild Up, and again a few months later in a staged version with Partch and under the baton of Christopher Rountree. In 2017, she made her debut with Opera Omaha singing the role of the Controller in their production of Jonathan Dove's Flight, where she was pleased to collaborate again with conductor Christopher Rountree and for the first time with director James Darrah. In 2018, she made her soloist debut with Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Phil in Bernstein's Mass, directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer and choreographed by Laurel Jenkins. That production inspired a remount at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival, where she reprised her role under the baton of Louis Langrée; the Wall Street Journal listed her as a "standout among the street-chorus soloists."

Anna also performs actively as a concert soloist. Highlights of her repertoire include Orff's Carmina Burana; Handel's Laudate Pueri; and Mozart's Exsultate Jubilate, Requiem, Vesperae solennes de confessore, and Mass in C Minor. Anna is also particularly well-known for her masterful Messiah solos; in 2013, she made her LA Master Chorale debut as a soloist in Handel's Messiah for their 50th anniversary season at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Since then, her soloist credits with the Master Chorale have included Bach's St. Matthew Passion, Gubaidulina's Canticle of the Sun, a version of Handel's Alexander's Feast staged by Trevore Ross, Handel's Israel in Egypt, and several performances of Messiah. In 2016, Anna was one of 21 Master Chorale singers to perform in a new staged production of Orlando di Lasso's Lagrime di San Pietro, directed by Peter Sellars and conducted by Grant Gershon, which the LA Times lauded as "a major accomplishment for the LA Master Chorale" and "a major accomplishment for music history." In 2018, Lagrime launched a worldwide tour, and over the next year, Anna performed the piece at the Ravinia Festival, the Salzburg Festival, and in Australia, Mexico, England, France, Germany, and several U.S. states.

Outside the world of classical vocals, Anna enjoys a stimulating career as a session singer. Her voice appears in various film and TV soundtracks, including The Lion King (2019), Mulan (2020), Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker, Call of the Wild, Creed, The Accountant, Sing, A Wrinkle in Time, Smallfoot, and Minions. Her classical chops come in handy in scores like Keanu (2016) and Birds of Prey (2020), in which her solo soprano vocals can be heard dramatically soaring over orchestra and choir alike.

Learn more at AnnaSchubertSoprano.com.