The East Village Opera Company

THE TOWN HALL PRESENTS THE EAST VILLAGE OPERA COMPANY
FRIDAY APRIL 27


The Town Hall will present, on Friday April 27 at 8 PM, the East Village Opera Company, the unique and acclaimed ensemble which “rocks” traditional opera into the twenty-first century. Time Out NY, describing their effect, which features hard-hitting arrangements of “Nessun Dorma,” “La Donna E Mobile” and other classic arias of Italian, French and English-language operas, performed full-length and in their original languages, wrote “The group’s charisma is inescapable and infectious, they electrify the classics for a new generation”

Tickets for the concert are $37.50 and $40.00, from TicketMaster, (212) 307-4100, or www.ticketmaster.com, or in person at The Town Hall Box Office, 123 West 43 Street, New York, NY 10036, (212) 840-2824.

Co-founded by lead singer Tyley Ross and arranger/multi-instrumentalist Peter Kiesewalter, both natives of Ottawa, Canada, their mission was to embrace what Peter Kiesewalter calls “the pomposity of rock and the pomposity of opera” without demeaning or satirizing either form. The two musicians assembled a full-on rock band, adding two guitars, bass, and drums to Peter’s keyboards, then synched it to a string quartet and added a second vocalist to perform operatic duets with Tyley Ross. In performance, their unorthodox musical settings are likely to include not only rock, but bossa nova, disco, Celtic and bluegrass, sometimes all in the same aria. Tyley Ross has also said “With modern recording technology and a wide variety of musical styles at our disposal, our goal has been to approach these songs the way we feel the composers would were they alive today.”

Their best-selling (and self-published) first album, La Donna, was released in 2005. Their second, East Village Opera Company, was produced by the Decca/Universal Classics label. Gay City News wrote ”This 11-person group takes opera classics and, very respectfully, turns out majestic rock anthems." Over the past year, they have filmed an Emmy-winning PBS special, worked on commissions for both The Public Theater and the New York City Opera, toured extensively through North America, and are preparing their second album for Decca/Universal.