Click here for 2024 Spring Festival’s THE EXTINCTIONIST.

Back in May, we had the incredible opportunity to gather in person for an artist residency at PS21 in Chatham, NY and mount a workshop presentation of THE EXTINCTIONIST, with music written by Daniel Schlosberg and libretto by Amanda Quaid. Now we are thrilled to share this 13-minute documentary — an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at our residency, created by filmmaker Joy Burklund (ZANNI Productions). We can't wait for you to join us at the world premiere production in 2023.

We're honored that Heartbeat Opera and The Extinctionist are featured in The New York Times! In residence at PS21 in Chatham, NY, and rehearsing for the semi-staged presentations, Louisa, Dan, Amanda, and Jacob discuss the process of developing Heartbeat's first-ever commission.

Read it now

CAST

Kelly Griffin

Woman

Kelly Griffin proves her versatility this season with Heartbeat Opera’s innovative visual album, Breathing Free, highlighting music from Beethoven’s Fidelio to African-American spirituals. She was also featured in Silas Farley’s ballet, Songs from the Spirit, commissioned by MetLiveArts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her other appearances include Leonora in La Forza del Destino, Amelia in Un Ballo in Maschera, the title role of Aida, Cio-Cio San in Madama Butterfly, and the title role of Tosca. A prominent concert performer, Kelly has been heard with symphonies across the United States, including Miami Symphony Orchestra and Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra.

benjamin dickerson

Man

Baritone Benjamin Dickerson has recently been seen in recital on the stages of Carnegie Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, the Caramoor Center for the Performing Arts, the Jerome L. Greene Space, and Music Academy of the West. He is currently a resident artist at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia. Mr. Dickerson returned to Florida Grand Opera for his second season in 2019, singing the roles of Schaunard in La Bohème, Mr. Kahlo/Mr. Rockefeller in Rodriguez’s biopic Frida, and Albert in Werther. In the summer of 2018, he made his role debut as Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro under the baton of James Conlon at Music Academy of the West. Benjamin previously covered the roles of Enrico (Lucia di Lammermoor) and Alvaro (Florencia en el Amazonas) as well as performing 1st Soldier in Salome at Florida Grand Opera. Mr. Dickerson joined the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts in the New York Festival of Song’s Emerging Artist Series. As the winner of the 2015 Marilyn Horne Competition, he performed a national recital tour culminating in a performance alongside Isabel Leonard, broadcast live on WNYC at the Greene Space in New York City. Mr. Dickerson spent the summers of 2016 and 2017 as a Gerdine Young Artist at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, performing in the premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon’s new version of The Grapes of Wrath, the Wigmaker in Ariadne auf Naxos and covering the roles of Schaunard in La Bohème and Pyralyl in the world premier of Jack Perla’s Shalimar the Clown. He is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music, where he won 1st prize in the Joan Taub Ades Vocal Competition.

Claire Leyden

Friend

Hailed by Opera News as a “star,” whose “lyric soprano is a major instrument,” Claire Leyden is a New York-based actor and singer with a passion for innovative crossover repertoire.  She is beyond grateful for this opportunity, which in many ways feels like a homecoming:  Claire is overjoyed to rejoin the Heartbeat family after 2019’s Der Freischütz, especially here in her beloved Berkshires (she is a proud Williams College graduate!)  Recent performances include  Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance (NY Gilbert & Sullivan Players), the title role in Madeleine (Victor Herbert Renaissance Project LIVE), and various productions with Bristol Valley Theater and College Light Opera Company.  www.ClaireLeyden.com

matthew gamble

Doctor

American Baritone Matthew Gamble has established himself as an artist of rare versatility, while his young career continues to grow with theatres in both North America and Europe. Recent and future engagements include performances at Lincoln Center Theater (Intimate Apparel), Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris (Passion), Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen (Porgy and Bess), Heartbeat Opera (Don Giovanni, The Extinctionist). Other engagements include debuts with the Prototype Festival, Budapest Summer Festival, Ravenna Festival, Lorin Maazel’s Castleton Festival, the Kennedy Center, BAM’s Next Wave Festival, American Opera Projects, the Phoenicia Festival of the Voice, and his first solo recital with Live from Elm Court (PA). Matthew has recently completed an extended collaboration as Principal Soloist (2014-2019) with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company in the development of two new works: Analogy/Lance, and A Letter to My Nephew, which has led to countless performances throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. Roles include Mozart's Count Almaviva, Don Alfonso, Leporello and Don Giovanni, Mr. Ford in Verdi's Falstaff, multiple Puccini roles, Luther/Schlemiel in L'Contes D'Hoffmann, Mr. Gobineau in Menotti's The Medium, multiple roles in the Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, and Smirnov in William Walton's The Bear.

Team

Daniel Schlosberg

Composer, Piano

The music of Brooklyn-based composer-pianist Daniel Schlosberg has been performed by the Dover Quartet, Minnesota Orchestra, Choir of Trinity Wall Street, Nashville Symphony, and Lorelei Ensemble, at venues including Carnegie Hall, (le) poisson rouge, Royal Albert Hall, Beijing Modern Music Festival, and David Lynch’s Festival of Disruption, and has been featured in the New York Times and WNYC’s Soundcheck. Daniel has received the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and two ASCAP Morton Gould Awards. Recent projects include the release of A Demonstration on New Amsterdam Records, Canal Songs for the Albany Symphony’s Erie Canal bicentennial, a fantasy on Twin Peaks for the Dover Quartet, and music for Jeremy O’Harris’s A Boy’s Company Presents. Last spring, Daniel was the pianist for Steven Spielberg’s upcoming film West Side Story. As a performer, Daniel has collaborated with such luminaries as David Shifrin and the Imani Winds. Daniel’s work has been described as “richly detailed yet delicate” by the New York Times and “witty” and “ingenious” by the Wall Street Journal. Daniel received his DMA in Composition from Yale University in 2018.  www.danschlosberg.com

amanda quaid

Librettist

Plays include The Clam (Playing on Air, a winner of the James Stevenson Prize), Circumstances Affecting the Heat of the Sun’s Rays (EST/Sloan Commission), Echo and Narcissus (Red Bull Short New Play Festival), and The Extinctionist (Ensemble Studio Theatre), on which this libretto is based. Toys, a short film she adapted, directed and hand-animated, is a winner of a Lunafest prize and best animation at DC Shorts. Amanda lives in New York with her husband and daughter. www.amandaquaid.com

louisa Proske

Director

Louisa Proske directs opera, classical theatre, and new plays with equal passion. She is a Princess Grace Award winner, a Musical America New Artist of the Month, and the proud Founding Co-Artistic Director of Heartbeat Opera. Productions in opera include Agrippina (Lincoln Center - Carnegie Hall/ Juilliard Vocal Arts), La Bohème (Pittsburgh Festival Opera), Così fan tutte (LoftOpera), Don Giovanni, Carmen, Lucia di Lammermoor, Daphnis & Chloé (all Heartbeat Opera), Falstaff (Dell’Arte Opera), Gianni Schicchi, Riders to the Sea, La Voix Humaine (Yale Opera); the world premiere of Invisible Cities at the Italian Academy New York. Theatre productions include The White Devil (Red Bull Theater - NYTimes Critic’s Pick), peerless (nominated for a Berkshire Theatre Award for Outstanding Direction), Gaslight, This, Engagements (all Barrington Stage Company), One Day When We Were Young (Assembly, Edinburgh). www.louisaproske.com

JACOB ASHWORTH

Music Director, Violin & Conductor

Jacob Ashworth is the “impressive Artistic Director” (New York Times) of Heartbeat's sister company, the baroque and modern “crack ensemble” (New Yorker) Cantata Profana, which he founded in 2012 at the Yale School of Music. He has also been Co-Music Director of Heartbeat Opera since the beginning. His own performances as a violinist and conductor from early baroque to contemporary music have been called “exacting and sensitive” (Boston Globe), “richly detailed” (New York Times), and “a flat-out triumph” (Opera News). On period instruments, Jacob has performed as concertmaster for Mark Morris Dance Group and Opera Lafayette, and with Trinity Baroque Orchestra, Staunton Music Festival, the Yale Baroque Ensemble, and New York Baroque Incorporated. 

DUSTIN Z WEST

Company Manager

Dustin is a New York-based freelance stage manager of opera, theatre, and dance. Off-Broadway: Camp Morning Wood, What We’re Up Against, Delirium’s Daughters. NYC: Bad News (NYU Skirball), Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Baryshnikov Arts Center), Mark Felt Superstar!, How to Be An American (York Theatre Company), Jules Verne: From Earth to the Moon (BAM), Angels in America: Millennium Approaches, Le nozze di Figaro, Iphigenie en Aulide, Beyond the Machine (The Juilliard School), Eugene Onegin, The Rake’s Progress, The Fall of the House of Usher, Cosi fan tutte, (Mannes Opera / The New School). Regional: The Santa Fe Opera, The Dallas Opera, The Glimmerglass Festival, Boston Lyric Opera, Atlanta Ballet, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Opera San Antonio, Skylight Music Theatre, Opera Memphis, Toledo Opera, Opera Grand Rapids, American Theater Company, Knoxville Opera, Heartbeat Opera, Theater Wit, EGADS! Theatre Company, and The Living Room. International: The Ghosts of Versailles (Opéra Royal de Versailles, France), Nighttime Lagoon Spectacular (Vinpearl Resort, Vietnam). TV/Film: Drunk History (Comedy Central), The #giveback Concert (Broadway Unlocked). Various readings / workshops. B.A., William Woods University. Professional Stage Management Program, The Juilliard School. Proud member of Actors’ Equity Association and AGMA.

Noriko Okabe

Recording Engineer

Noriko Okabe is a trained Classical musician turned freelance recording engineer, aiming to capture the magic of music making. She works with WQXR, as well as various clients in NYC and Philadelphia. She is the concert recording engineer for Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont, Music From Angel Fire in New Mexico, and the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. She also freelances in audio related projects, including The Moth, Simon & Schuster Audio, Audible, and Pineapple Street Media.

band

Caitlin Cawley

Percussion

Caitlin Cawley is a percussionist, improviser, composer and educator based in Brooklyn, NY. She’s interested in the ability of live performance to engender empathy and facilitate authentic contact between human beings. She has played, sang, danced and yelled in concert halls, garages, bars, living rooms, kitchens, forests, art galleries and rooftops – using megaphones, triangles, gongs, drums, balloons, lamps, speaker drivers, vibraphones, EMT pipes, plastic buckets, tin cans, index cards, glass bottles and styrofoam – with newts, birds, Talujon, Cantata Profana, Heartbeat Opera, Novus NY, Black Sheep Contemporary Ensemble, Confluss, Opus 87, The Delegation, The Performance in Peace Initiative, Peydah Company, so&so, Gamelan Galak Tika, Gamelan Yowana Sari, Brian Adler’s Human Time Machine, Danse Theatre Surreality, NE14 Dance, Paul Pinto, Richard Kim, Melody Loveless and Sarah Chien. She teaches with Bash The Trash, Midori and Friends and The Spence School, and she was taught by David Cossin, Jeff Milarsky, John Ferrari, Tim Genis and Sam Solomon.

Thomas Flippin

Guitars

Thomas Flippin is a versatile guitarist and advocate for the creation of new works and equality in classical music. His recent album, Night Triptych, featured new works entirely by women composers and was named one of the Best Classical Music albums of 2018 by both All Music and I Care if You Listen. Flippin has performed at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, and frequently collaborates with Porgy and Bess national tour star Alicia Hall Moran, MacArthur Fellow Jason Moran, and the American Repertory Theater production The Black Clown. He is a graduate of the Yale School of Music.