Faust Project Open Rehearsals (Jan. 2017)
Jan. 22, 10:00 am-1:00 pm, and Jan 24, 7:00-10:00 pm
Room B1, Slee Hall, UB North Campus
Photo by Irene Haupt
The musicians involved in The Faust Project opened up their limited rehearsal time to allow the public to "peak behind the curtain."
Conductor Matthew Chamberlain works with the cellists on timing and cues. Photo by Irene Haupt.
Nathan Heidelberger, composer
Matthew Chamberlain, conductor
Emlyn Johnson, flutes
Megan Kyle, oboe and English horn
David Wegehaupt, saxophones
Katie Weissman and Erica Snowden, cello
John Smigielski, percussion
Open Rehearsals offer a unique perspective on the creative dynamic between conductors, musicians, and composers as they sculpt pieces for final performance. Visitors have the chance to watch the music come to life.
Composer Heidelberger explains his intensions. Photo by Irene Haupt.
The Faust Project: A Staged Reading with Live Music of Goethe's Faust, is an inventive reworking of Goethe’s epic by Yale Drama Award winning playwright Neil Wechsler and former Tanglewood Music Center compositional fellow and UB alumnus Nathan Heidelberger.
The eighty-minute staged reading of selected scenes from Goethe’s tragedy adapted and directed by Wechsler, with Heidelberger’s new chamber score, features Vincent O’Neill as Mephistopheles, David Oliver as Faust, and Kurt Guba and Josephine Hogan in multiple roles.
The challenge of capturing all of Goethe’s 17-hour epic in a spare, roughly hour-long performance mirrors Faust’s own insatiable drive to master all knowledge and highlights the simplicity at the heart of the story – the bargain between Faust and the Devil.