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THE MAIDEN TOWER

chamber opera

EXCERPT - Overture: Key to Pronunciation (02:45)


music and text by Justine F. Chen
performed live by actress Elizabeth Raetz, bass Matt Boehler, and soprano Jennifer Zetlan.
 

​Picture yourself in a darkened auditorium, the lights come up and there are three microphones at the front of the stage with three people behind them.  As they step up to the microphones and begin speaking, their voices surround you.

 

synopsis:

It is some time in the post-apocalyptic future, after a great war. The only houses left standing are those built by The Guild. This story focuses on Abraham and Miranda, father and daughter -- and IAGA, the computer who runs their home (a spectacular creation of The Guild).

Both scared to a paranoid degree of the war-ravaged and contaminated world outside their house, Abraham and Miranda have not left their house for the last seventeen years.  Mason, a rebuilder (an employee of The Guild) sent to look at the house computer, enters their strange and secluded environment.

THE MAIDEN TOWER (2005) was first performed at The Juilliard School, and has been performed in NYCO's VOX 2006, and in Montréal by Chants Libres. 

For program notes on this opera, click here.

For instrumentation/technical requirements click here

JUSTINE F. CHEN

COMPOSER AND VIOLINIST

SAVE THE DATE! 10.20.24 5 - 7 PM
Join me at the Libretto Reading of SISTERS OF THE STORM, a chamber opera-in-progress w. librettist Marcus Yi.

Asian American Writers' Workshop/NYC

THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE SONG join us at the composer's round table discussion with Tom Cipullo, Melissa Dunphy, Kamala Sankaram, Sam Martin, and myself! 5/12/25 2:30-4 PM


READ our RAVE REVIEW of SHALLOW BREATH AND STEALTH in GRAMOPHONE magazine! 
"...impish, earnest and ominous ... her spare musical imagery portrays everything from earthly ecstasy to anxieties perpetrated by forces seemingly beyond containment."
LISTEN on Spotify  YouTube   AppleMusic

BEST WORLD PREMIERE!

Our "Fantastical, evocative, and nuanced" opera THE LIFE AND DEATH(S) OF ALAN TURING was named BEST WORLD PREMIERE of 2023 by Chicago Tribune
 

 All content in this website, including text, most images and sound files, is ©Copyright 2024 by Justine Fang Chen.

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