APRIL 23, 2024 — The UTSA Lyric Theatre presents the final production of its 2023-2024 season with The VERDI Project. The concert will be held at 7 p.m. on Friday, April 26, at the Edgewood Theater for Performing Arts in San Antonio.
From the creative mind of director Jourdan Laine Howell, associate professor of instruction for voice and Lyric Theatre at the UTSA School of Music, the show is a new collaborative effort between the school’s theatre, orchestra and choral ensembles. The massive production commemorates the School of Music’s 50th anniversary this year.
The event will center the life and works of the famous Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi. UTSA Lyric Theatre vocalists will perform melodies by Verdi, one of opera’s most celebrated composers. The show will also include narration by UTSA professor emeritus Gary Mabry and student Justin Chappell.
The production will feature the UTSA orchestra and all three choral ensembles. Directed by orchestra conductor Troy Peters and Jordan D. Boyd, assistant director of choral activities, this collaboration will provide the large number of voices required for Verdi’s famous choruses.
“I am thrilled to help celebrate the School of Music’s 50th anniversary year with this huge team project, because it speaks to the collaborative, familial spirit of our school’s faculty and students,” Howell said. “Verdi is a big name in opera. Maestro Peters and I agreed that focusing on a giant of the opera world would be a great way to commemorate 50 years.”
Howell added that she and Peters will work together again this fall.
“We will bring another opera giant to the stage — the masterful Mozart himself in a production of Don Giovanni, one of the world’s most performed operatic works.”
The production will feature costume pieces from UTSA’s MET Opera collection.
Student vocalists for the production include Callan Sramek, Joshua Moncada Zoll, Emily Densmore, Alyssa Moreno, Lucas Moncada Zoll, Deeana Janai-Malave, Francheska Lugo, Antonio Zubillaga, Osvaldo Chacon, Lexie Cairy, Taylor Malcolm, Jared Kellman-Medina and Ryan Noelle.
The creative team consists of Peters, Howell, Aurorah Cerros (assistant stage director), Madeleine Phipps (stage manager), Chuck Drew (lighting design) and Boyd (shadow conductor).
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