Kosmologia is an ongoing project for music and integrated arts where Carmen-Helena Téllez interprets the world and human experience as an artist. Carmen-Helena Téllez named this continued and long-standing practice in 2014, when invited to contribute as an interdisciplinary artist to “From Here To There”, a collective event produced by NON:Op Open Opera Works in Chicago, and in turn, she presented her own collective contribution with newly composed works for vocal ensemble. However, Carmen-Helena Téllez has created, conducted an produced interdisciplinary events since 2005, when she was commissioned by the Library of Congress to present a concert around the artfully-drawn score of The Magical Labyrinth, by Aurelio de la Vega. The result, involving interactive staging, was described by The Washington Post as “immersive and thrilling”
For a view of independent projects after 2014 under the label Kosmologia, click HERE.
For a view of featured projects by year, click HERE
For a view of featured interdisciplinary projects and co-productions by type, see below.
•THE INTERDISCIPLINARY SACRED MUSIC DRAMAS AT NOTRE DAME
Four interdisciplinary sacred music dramas with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Journeying La Divina Commedia: Desert, Discovery, Song (2016)
A co-creative concept asking the audience to live Dante’s experience towards love.
Elijah orThe Jewish Artist In The Western World (2015)
A new view of the classic oratorio by Mendelssohn, with echo projects.
I Was Born For This (2014)
On the ability of the small person to change history.
•INTERDISCIPLINARY PRODUCTIONS AND CO-PRODUCTIONS
Staged Mozart Requiem for the Festival of Sacred Music of Quito (2018)
. Illuminating the Incarnation (2017)
Music, Courage and Remembrance (2016)
An interdisciplinary portrait concert dedicated to the music of Shulamit Ran
From Here to There (2014)
A co-creative, non-hierarchical production.
Don Freund’s Passion with Tropes (2011)
A masterpiece by the celebrated American composer, transformed from oratorio to immersive music drama.
Concerto Imaginario –Tenebrae Poems and Prayers for Modern Man:
A multimedia concert with the Contemporary Vocal Ensemble (2011)
Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana: A Morality Play (2009)
Conceived after esoteric preoccupations of the composer.
A video piece nesting the composition’s structure and rhetorical references
•NEW OPERA PRODUCTION AND CONDUCTING
The Magic Flute of the Andes (2018)
¡Unicamente la verdad! ) a video opera (2008)
A videopera by Gabriela Ortiz and Rubén Ortiz Torres based on preexistent scholarship and popular music.
An Opera in Three Images by Osvaldo Golijov
•COMMISSIONS, PREMIERES AND RECORDINGS
At the University of Notre Dame
•CONFERENCES
James MacMillan and the Music Models of Mary and the Cross
Cultural Counterpoints: The Musical Interactions between the United States and Latin America