City of Light for full orchestra (commissioned by the Buffalo Philharmonic in celebration of music director JoAnn Falletta’s 25th year) opens the BPO’s season on 28 September 2024. See Buffalo News, Buffalo Spree, and here.

Everyone, Everywhere, commissioned by The Cecilia Chorus of New York, Mark Shapiro Music Director, in celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and premiered in December at Carnegie Hall, is now set for release on the Naxos label worldwide in February 2025. Cercle Bach de Genève is conducted by Mark Shapiro in the European premiere of the hour-long work for soloists, choirs, and orchestra on 10 November in Geneva, Switzerland. Mark Shapiro and UN High Commissioner Volker Türk discuss the work here.

Naxos released world premiere recordings of The Art of Song (featuring Lyric Fest) in January and released Heike Quinto (featuring Duo YUMENO) on 24 May worldwide. Duo YUMENO included selections from the release on their Japanese tour & gave the world premiere of Apotheosis at Bargemusic on the Here and Now Festival 31 August. Articles in Hong Kong here, Germany here, and the US here.

I Hear America Singing has wrapped production in Pittsburgh and is now in post-production for 1 September 2025 release. A review of the staged production in onStage Pittsburgh here.

New York Stories is given its European staged premiere at the Teatro do Bairro, by Operà Deriva in Lisbon, Portugal, 7-8 September 2024. An interview with director & soprano Cláudia Anjos in Portuguese Look Mag here.

A screening of 9/10: Love Before the Fall was reviewed by the Albany Times Union in April. Jody Dalton wrote, “The performances are poised and gripping, while the look and sound of the production are deliberately rough, sometimes even raw. Hagen didn’t have a Baz Luhrmann budget, but the verisimilitude seems deliberate and is effective.  … Hagen’s ingenious vision has pushed him far beyond the typical duties of a composer. As he gains experience in filmmaking, he brings innovation to both fields, music and movie.” Read the review here.

More 9/10 press includes an interview with Daron in the Swedish International Film Festival magazine here; and in the Cannes World Film Festival blog here. An “audience feedback” reel from the Experimental Dance & Music Festival in Montreal here. An interview with Daron produced by the WILDSound Film Festival here. An article / interview in OperaWire here describes 9/10 as “a neo-Gesamtkunstwerk form of opera cinema where each and everything seen on the screen, from the cuts to the lighting to the pacing, reflect the internal motivations of the story.” 

9/10: Love Before the Fall is released to streaming on 9/10/24.

Past news here.

More buzz about New Mercury Collective projects here.