AboutJake Heggie, Composer & Pianist Jake Heggie is the composer of the operas Dead Man Walking (libretto by Terrence McNally), The End of the Affair (libretto by Heather McDonald, Leonard Foglia and Jake Heggie), and the musical scene At the Statue of Venus (libretto by Terrence McNally). The recipient of a 2005/06 Guggenheim Fellowship, he has also composed more than 200 songs, as well as concerti, orchestral works and chamber music. His songs, song cycles and operas are championed internationally by singers who include Renée Fleming, Audra McDonald, Susan Graham, Frederica von Stade, Kristine Jepson, Jennifer Larmore, Joyce DiDonato, Joyce Castle, Zheng Cao, and Bryn Terfel. He has collaborated regularly with conductors Patrick Summers and John DeMain, and director Leonard Foglia. Upcoming commissions include a music theater work for the Metropolitan Opera in association with Lincoln Center Theater; a short lyric drama, To Hell and Back (libretto by Gene Scheer), for the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra with singers Patti LuPone and Isabel Bayrakdarian, conducted by Nicholas McGegan; a three-person music theater work featuring Frederica von Stade for Houston Grand Opera and San Francisco Opera; a major new opera for Dallas Opera and San Francisco Opera (libretto by Terrence McNally); a work for chorus and orchestra for the Pacific Chorale; and a song cycle for tenor Vinson Cole about the persecution of gays during the Holocaust as part of Seattle’s Music of Remembrance. Heggie’s operas have been performed at the San Francisco Opera, New York City Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Seattle Opera, State Opera of South Australia, Cincinnati Opera, Austin Lyric Opera, Opera Pacific, Calgary Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Madison Opera, Baltimore Opera and Michigan Opera Theatre. Dead Man Walking recently received its European Premiere in Dresden at the SemperOper in a new production by Nikolaus Lehnhoff. Future productions of the operas are scheduled for Malmö Opera (Scandinavian Premiere), Vienna’s Klangbogen Festival, Sydney, and Kansas City Lyric Opera. An award-winning PBS documentary titled And Then One Night: The Making of Dead Man Walking, has been telecast internationally, and both operas have received live broadcasts on National Public Radio. Return to TOP He has been resident composer for the San Francisco Opera, EOS Orchestra, Vail Valley Music Festival, and the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival, and has given lectures and master classes for singers and composers at universities and conservatories that include the Cincinnati Conservatory, NYU, Bucknell University, DePauw University, and UCLA, to name a few. He has also been a guest artist at SongFest in Malibu, the Steans Institute at the Ravinia Festival, and the Grandin Festival in Cincinnati. As a pianist, Heggie has often accompanied Frederica von Stade in recital, and has also performed with sopranos Anna Netrebko, Dawn Upshaw, Kristin Clayton, Nicolle Foland, and Leah Partridge; mezzos Susan Graham, Joyce DiDonato, Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson, Jennifer Larmore, Margaret Lattimore, Mary Phillips and Zheng Cao; tenor Paul Groves; countertenor Brian Asawa; and baritones Thomas Hampson and Bo Skovhus. Recordings of his work include The Deepest Desire (Eloquentia), Dead Man Walking (Erato), The Faces of Love (RCA), My Native Land (Teldec), and Holy the Firm: Essay for Cello and Orchestra (Oakland East Bay Symphony with cellist Emil Miland). Heggie also contributed a song to the musical Songs From and Unmade Bed, lyrics by Mark Campbell (Ghostlight). Among the composer’s numerous commissions are works for the San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera (co-commissioned by Madison Opera and Opera Pacific), Metropolitan Opera with Lincoln Center Theater, Opera Colorado, Ravinia Festival, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Oakland East Bay Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Louisville Orchestra, New Century Chamber Orchestra, Chanticleer, Harmida Trio, Camerata Pacifica, San Francisco Girls Chorus, Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia, University of Kansas at Lawrence, University of Connecticut at Storrs, Music of Remembrance, Pacifica Chorale, Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, Music Accord ad individual commissions from singers Frederica von Stade, Jennifer Larmore, Brian Asawa, Bryn Terfel and Robert Orth. Jake Heggie was born in West Palm Beach, FL, in 1961. From the age of two he was raised in Ohio and California. His first composition teacher was the late Ernst Bacon, with whom he studied in Orinda, CA from 1977 to 1979. After two years of study in Paris, he went to UCLA where he studied piano with the late Johana Harris and composition with Roger Bourland, Paul DesMarais and the late David Raksin. He has made his home in San Francisco since 1993. |
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