gesamtkünstwerk | Carmen-Helena Téllez

Artists and Parallel Universes…

January 4, 2018 by carmen helena tellez

It was only a matter of time that the brilliant music writer of the New Yorker magazine, Alex Ross, would address the musical treatment of leitmotifs in John Williams’ music for the Star Wars movies. Perhaps there is more than just a musical homage of a living composer to the grand master of the Gesamtkünstwerk; it may reveal Star Wars as a “total work of art”, collectively created under the vision of George Lucas. Just like Wagner’s serialized mythology in his Ring operas […]

Categories: art and ritual, context and perception, gesamtkünstwerk, Uncategorized • Tags: space opera, Star Wars, Wagner's Ring Cycle

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Sharing the news of our new DMA at Notre Dame

December 30, 2012 by carmen helena tellez

On December 11 the University of Notre Dame approved a new Doctor of Musical Arts program with specializations in Choral Conducting and in Organ. The approach to training the new conductors includes deep study of the relationship of music with other arts and other disciplines. Although conductors will study the broad choral repertoires, it is inevitable to study Western sacred music, which lies a the foundation of most Western art music. After all, in my personal view, liturgy is one […]

Categories: art and religion, art and ritual, gesamtkünstwerk, interdiscipline, new choral music, new conductor, new opera and music drama, sacred music, scholarship • Tags: DMA at Notre Dame, James MacMillan

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Sharing Don Freund’s Passion with Tropes

February 28, 2012 by carmen helena tellez

An interdisciplinary project produced last May, that has opened so many avenues for reflection! The interaction with great artists lighting designer Rob Shakespeare, video artist Susanne Schwibs. digital artist Margaret Dolinsky, choreographer Liz Shea, digital designer Ed Dambik, stage mechanics designer Paul Brunner and stage director Jonathan Courtemanche can change a life, in this case, mine. Bravo–composer Don Freund! (In the picture, tenor Nick Fitzer and digital art by Margaret Dolinsky).For more pictures, visit Margaret Dolinsky’s page here

Categories: art and religion, art and ritual, gesamtkünstwerk, interdiscipline, multimedia, my work, new opera and music drama • Tags: DON FREUND

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Philip Glass’s Satyagraha: Met’s great production for a significant work.

December 9, 2011 by carmen helena tellez

…not only the opera as a musical work, but its production, such as the MET has done it for Philip Glass’s Satyagraha last November. Satyagraha means The Force of Truth in Sanskrit. We were stunned by the extraordinary marriage of the music and its visual and choreographic manifestation. I saw it at the movies only yesterday, through one of the wonderful Met HD broadcasts that are changing the consumption of opera. The camera work in itself was extraordinary, and speaks […]

Categories: art and ritual, contemporary music, gesamtkünstwerk, interdiscipline, music, new opera and music drama, postclassical music

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The reviews of PASSION with Tropes are as variegated as the work itself

May 30, 2011 by carmen helena tellez

Composer Jeremy Podgursky has just published his review of Don Freund’s PASSION with Tropes in the excellent online journal Sequenza21.com. His full account and considered opinion teach us how an interdisciplinary presentation of a musical work originally conceived for concert oratorio format may provoke surprising revelations about the work itself. The layers multiply beyond the performance through the reception and critique of viewers. Podgursky’s impression of PASSION was affected by his experience of important films by Fellini and Godard. This […]

Categories: art, art and religion, art and ritual, art music video, contemporary music, gesamtkünstwerk, interdiscipline, meta-composition, multimedia, music composition, my work, new choral music, new conductor, new opera and music drama, postclassical music, sacred music

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The tech rehearsals continue…

May 19, 2011 by carmen helena tellez

…an interview with the composer and some scenes here Working in the round poses some unique challenges. Clearly, conventional proscenium presentation offers acoustic advantages, and in particular, more control by the conductor of the overall perception by the audience. When working in the round for an immersive concept, especially if the work is staged, balances and emphases are constantly shifting, but the sense of “belonging” is greater…

Categories: contemporary music, context and perception, gesamtkünstwerk, interdiscipline, meta-composition, multimedia, new choral music, new conductor, new opera and music drama, Uncategorized • Tags: DON FREUND, MARGARET DOLINSKY, PASSION WITH TROPES, ROBERT A. SHAKESPEARE, Susanne Schwibs

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The work on PASSION with Tropes continues…

May 14, 2011 by carmen helena tellez

Assistant Conductor Greg Geehern testing images for Passion with Tropes by Margaret Dolinsky and Susanne Schwibs …and Don Freund has left these notes in the Event’s Site. For him, it is about the friction of several scriptural and poetic texts as well as musical styles. For me it has been to find an unexpected message that the audience takes away from the conflict of ideas. My assistant, the brilliant young conductor and interdisciplinary artist Mark Doerries expresses it as this: […]

Categories: contemporary music, gesamtkünstwerk, interdiscipline, meta-composition, multimedia, new choral music, new conductor, new opera and music drama, sacred music, Uncategorized • Tags: CARMEN HELENA TELLEZ, DON FREUND, Greg Geehern, MARGARET DOLINSKY, MARK DOERRIES, PASSION WITH TROPES, ROBERT A. SHAKESPEARE, Susanne Schwibs

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PASSION with Tropes: Conceptualizing the Interdisciplinary Presentation

May 7, 2011 by carmen helena tellez

Digital Art by Margaret Dolinsky, Copyright 2011 I am in the middle of production for a new interdisciplinary version of Don Freund’s PASSION with Tropes that I will conduct on May 20 and 21, 2011, in Bloomington, Indiana. Originally composed in 1983 as a sprawling oratorio with staged components, PASSION with Tropes has been reborn in a second version suitable for interdisciplinary treatment. Composer Don Freund agreed to revisit this magnum opus of his, after I came to him with […]

Categories: gesamtkünstwerk, interdiscipline, meta-composition

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Operatic Meditations on the Life of an Artist

April 12, 2011 by carmen helena tellez

(Photo credit: Alain Barker for the Jacobs School of Music) The Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University is celebrating its 100th anniversary the best possible way, by commissioning an opera. That opera is VINCENT, by the formidable Pulitzer prize-winning composer Bernard Rands. With a libretto by J.C McClatchy, the work explores the mind of the iconic artist Vincent van Gogh, its creative goals, spiritual obsessions, and ultimate disintegration. A beautiful design by Barry Steele includes digital images and projections […]

Categories: contemporary music, gesamtkünstwerk, interdiscipline, multimedia, new opera and music drama • Tags: Barry Steele, Bernard Rands, J.C. McClatchy, jacobs school of music, Sequenza21.com, Vincent van Gogh

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Carmen-Helena Téllez

Conductor – Producer – Interdisciplinary Artist • A presentation site with notes about music, art and the occasional paradox

Category Archives: gesamtkünstwerk

Artists and Parallel Universes…

Sharing the news of our new DMA at Notre Dame

Sharing Don Freund’s Passion with Tropes

Philip Glass’s Satyagraha: Met’s great production for a significant work.

The reviews of PASSION with Tropes are as variegated as the work itself

The tech rehearsals continue…

The work on PASSION with Tropes continues…

PASSION with Tropes: Conceptualizing the Interdisciplinary Presentation

Operatic Meditations on the Life of an Artist