

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
BREAKING NEWS:
HONORED and THRILLED to be featured at Ravinia this summer! Thank you and CONGRATULATIONS to the singers of "to belong" at Ravinia August 7, 2023- Yvette Keong, Elissa Pfaender, and Yuntong Han!
BRAVA to the ever luminous Jen Zetlan and Nana Shi and their phenomenal performance of PHILOMEL in my old stomping grounds of Brooklyn Heights! Thank you, BASS!
THANKS to Johnathan McCullough and Carol Wong for their charmingly hilarious performance of my Platform Anxiety song! Thanks to Carnegie Hall, Citywide!
THANK YOU to the cast and crew of THE LIFE AND DEATH(S) OF ALAN TURING!! Chicago Tribune COT Interview Out Chicago
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CHECK OUT my Know Them Now video on YouTube! Thanks, BMI!
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