For centuries, opera has championed the long-ago and far-away as one form of musical storytelling. What if we found a way for opera to celebrate the here and now, to explore stories of our time and our place?
Join us for an adventure in community storytelling through Seattle Opera's Belonging(s) project - an exploration of the stories of your most precious possessions.
When an opera company commissions a new work, it usually begins and ends with the composer and librettist. This time we're taking a different approach: we're starting with your story and the stories of your friends, your neighbors and others you pass by on the street. Belonging(s) begins with an online repository of videos-a digital quilt created by you, your friends, and the people you pass on the street-that tell stories of our most precious possessions: those objects or memories that help us understand our lives, our relationships, and our legacies.
Think about this: if you had to leave your home today, and couldn't return, what would you want to take with you? Why is that object, that memory, or that connection to your past so important?
Join us for an adventure in community storytelling through Seattle Opera's Belonging(s) project - an exploration of the stories of your most precious possessions.
When an opera company commissions a new work, it usually begins and ends with the composer and librettist. This time we're taking a different approach: we're starting with your story and the stories of your friends, your neighbors and others you pass by on the street. Belonging(s) begins with an online repository of videos-a digital quilt created by you, your friends, and the people you pass on the street-that tell stories of our most precious possessions: those objects or memories that help us understand our lives, our relationships, and our legacies.
Think about this: if you had to leave your home today, and couldn't return, what would you want to take with you? Why is that object, that memory, or that connection to your past so important?
Belonging(s) Creative Team
Jack Perla, Composer
Composer and pianist Jack Perla creates new musical works for stage and recording, using a palette that includes symphonic, operatic, choral & chamber music, as well as multiple jazz idioms. He was recently commissioned by the Houston Grand Opera to create a one-act opera with San Francisco playwright Eugenie Chan, for the multi-year “Song of Houston” project, funded by the Mellon foundation. Jack Perla earned his DMA in composition from the Yale School of Music and earned his BM from the Manhattan School of Music. He joined the Music Department faculty of Santa Clara University in the fall of 2007, where he teaches Composition, Jazz Piano, and courses in Orchestration, Music Technology and Jazz History.
Jessica Murphy Moo, Librettist
Jessica Murphy Moo is a writer, teacher, and editor. Her fiction has appeared in The Atlantic, Image, and Memorious; her nonfiction has appeared in Poets & Writers Magazine and The Atlantic Online, among other publications. As Seattle Opera’s communications editor, she writes for and edits Seattle Opera’s programs and subscriber magazine. She has held teaching positions at Emerson College, Harvard University, Boston University, and Seattle Pacific University, and she now teaches for an online writing workshop organization based in the Seattle area. She holds an MFA in fiction from Emerson College, and has been the recipient of the Milton Center Postgraduate Writing Fellowship and a Whiteley Center Writing Residency. In addition to the Belonging(s) libretto, she is working on a collection of short stories.
Jack Perla, Composer
Composer and pianist Jack Perla creates new musical works for stage and recording, using a palette that includes symphonic, operatic, choral & chamber music, as well as multiple jazz idioms. He was recently commissioned by the Houston Grand Opera to create a one-act opera with San Francisco playwright Eugenie Chan, for the multi-year “Song of Houston” project, funded by the Mellon foundation. Jack Perla earned his DMA in composition from the Yale School of Music and earned his BM from the Manhattan School of Music. He joined the Music Department faculty of Santa Clara University in the fall of 2007, where he teaches Composition, Jazz Piano, and courses in Orchestration, Music Technology and Jazz History.
Jessica Murphy Moo, Librettist
Jessica Murphy Moo is a writer, teacher, and editor. Her fiction has appeared in The Atlantic, Image, and Memorious; her nonfiction has appeared in Poets & Writers Magazine and The Atlantic Online, among other publications. As Seattle Opera’s communications editor, she writes for and edits Seattle Opera’s programs and subscriber magazine. She has held teaching positions at Emerson College, Harvard University, Boston University, and Seattle Pacific University, and she now teaches for an online writing workshop organization based in the Seattle area. She holds an MFA in fiction from Emerson College, and has been the recipient of the Milton Center Postgraduate Writing Fellowship and a Whiteley Center Writing Residency. In addition to the Belonging(s) libretto, she is working on a collection of short stories.
