{"id":6905,"date":"2025-08-31T13:02:51","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T18:02:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alzand.com\/?p=6905"},"modified":"2025-09-02T19:18:38","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T00:18:38","slug":"2025-2026-season-premieres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alzand.com\/?p=6905","title":{"rendered":"2025\/2026 Season Premieres"},"content":{"rendered":"

T<\/span>he 2025-2026 season will feature the world premiere of two major new works: The Strangers’ Case<\/i><\/strong>, an extended song cycle for tenor and string orchestra and A Joint Interest<\/i><\/strong>, a comic chamber opera for three singers and ensemble.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Karim Sulayman, tenor<\/p><\/div>\n

The Strangers’ Case<\/i><\/strong>, written for Grammy Award winning tenor Karim Sulayman<\/a>, will be performed in Houston on March 28th<\/a>, as a co-presentation of the dynamic conductorless string orchestra Kinetic<\/a> and pioneering new music presenters Musiqa<\/a>. A performance in Boston’s Jordan Hall on May 9th<\/a> by Grammy-Nominated ensemble A Far Cry<\/a> will follow. <\/p>\n

Subtitled <songs and chronicles of the immigrant experience<\/i>>, The Strangers’ Case<\/i><\/strong> gathers together poems, personal accounts and other literary sources from newcomers to the United States. Drawing on texts from a variety of cultures, voices and time periods, it paints a layered emotional narrative of our complicated history with “strangers” to our shores. Its title is borrowed from Shakespeare\u2019s monologue<\/a> for Thomas More, which eloquently argues for empathy and compassion towards displaced people.\"\"<\/a> Several of its texts are taken from a unique 1906 publication entitled Life Stories of Undistinguished Americans as Told By Themselves<\/i>, a series of personal, turn-of-the-century accounts by immigrants to the United States: \u201cLady in the Harbor\u201d is the story of a young Polish girl destined for the textile sweatshops, and \u201cSuch an Illumination\u201d is from a Syrian refugee fleeing persecution in his homeland. \u201cIsland of Angels\u201d excerpts lines written in the wake of the 1882 Asian Exclusion Act. This anonymous poem, \"\"<\/a>translated from the Chinese, was found inscribed on the wooden walls of a San Francisco Bay immigrant detention facility. The cycle also includes a remarkable and prescient 1908 poem by Arthur Upson, \u201cThe Statue of Liberty (New York Harbor, A.D. 2900)<\/a>\u201d that imagines the New York harbor of the far future: the Statue of Liberty is unearthed, sunken in the mire, discovered by a \u201ctyrant who misrules our land.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> A Joint Interest<\/i><\/strong> was commissioned by the Shepherd School of Music on the occasion of its 50th anniversary<\/a>. The libretto is a modern re-telling of O. Henry’s “Makes the Whole World Kin,” a classic yarn from America’s beloved short-story writer. A chamber opera buffa<\/i>, A Joint Interest<\/i><\/strong> is a comic scene of late-night insomnia, cat burglary, and the aches and pains that bind us all. The performance, led by Director of Orchestras, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Professor of Opera Studies, Joshua Winograde, director Paul Curran, and a stellar cast of student singers and instrumentalists, will have its premiere Sunday February 1st<\/a> on the Shepherd School’s stunning Morrison Theater stage.<\/p>\n

“The burglar stepped inside the window quickly, and then he took his time. A burglar who respects his art always takes his time before taking anything else.” O. Henry (Makes the Whole World Kin)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A complete list of 2025-2026 season performances can be found in the events listing<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 2025-2026 season will feature the world premiere of two major new works: The Strangers’ Case, an extended song cycle for tenor and string orchestra and A Joint Interest, a comic chamber opera for three singers and ensemble. The Strangers’ Case, written for Grammy Award winning tenor Karim Sulayman, will be performed in Houston on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alzand.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alzand.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alzand.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alzand.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alzand.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6905"}],"version-history":[{"count":58,"href":"https:\/\/alzand.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6968,"href":"https:\/\/alzand.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6905\/revisions\/6968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alzand.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alzand.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alzand.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}