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WORKING WOMEN: Songs of suffering and suffrage

September 2020 - WORLD PREMIERE
Online

"Working Women: Songs of Suffering and Suffrage" features three “Songs of Suffrage” presented alongside excerpts from the chamber opera Letters That You Will Not Get: Women's Voices from the Great War, connecting the women of World War I, the women who fought for suffrage, and the women of today through the power of song, using archival footage alongside documentary-style music videos by filmmaker Lesley Steele.

LETTERS THAT YOU WILL NOT GET: WOMEN’S VOICES FROM THE GREAT WAR
COMPOSED BY KIRSTEN VOLNESS
LIBRETTO BY KATE HOLLAND AND SUSAN WERBE
DIRECTION BY KATE HOLLAND
Letters That You Will Not Get: Women's Voices from the Great War gives voice to American, British, European, Asian, African and Caribbean women affected by WWI through a series of vignettes that share their responses to the war—from enthusiasm to resignation; support to opposition; the war’s beginning to its end. Combining powerful contemporary music with excerpts from women’s writings on both sides of the conflict, Letters tells the story of the Great War as experienced by the women who lived through it.

Artists include:
Maria Lindsey / soprano
Jessica Sandidge / soprano
Sarah Beckham-Turner / soprano
Caitlin McKechney / mezzo-soprano
Briana Hunter / mezzo-soprano
Angel Desai / mezzo-soprano

Melissa Tong / Violin I
Elena Moon Park / Violin II
Andie Tanning / Viola
Meaghan Burke / cello
Mimi Jones / Double Bass

Video direction, editing and 16mm cinematography by Lesley Steele
Audio engineering by Brett Parnell at Bear in a Barn
Additional audio/VIDEO recording by Chris Comfort
Filmed on location in artists' homes.

Working Women: Songs of Suffering and Suffrage is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. The development of Letters That You Will Not Get: Women's Voices from the Great War received funding from OPERA America’s Opera Grants for Female Composers program, supported by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, as well as general funding from The Howard Gilman Foundation. Composers & the Voice is supported by a multi-year grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

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