Looking Forward, Looking Back
Before embarking on the adventures of 2019, I’ll honor my 2018 work, and the work of my many collaborators, by logging some goodies below. Lots of my pals near and far follow my escapades on the interwebs, so join me in revisiting projects and looking at what’s ahead in 2019 (in no particular order):
I’m super-excited to be in the midst of pre-production for A Rose: a new episode in Houston Grand Opera / HGOco’s web opera series Star Cross’d. I’m directing and editing the 1o minute episode and Kamala Sankaram composed the music. Kamala and I co-wrote the libretto based on the love story of a Southeast Asian couple who now make their home in Houston. It’s a beautiful story of love-conquers-all with a stellar East-meets-West score by Kamala. The workshop at HGO in December was tons of fun. We record the work in February at Wire Road Studios and film in March. Expect an autumn 2019 release!
Brian Shankar Adler plays tabla in the East-meets-West ensemble ingeniously composed by Kamala Sankaram.
A fruitful collaboration with kindred spirit and composer Chris Becker continues with his cool avant-pop track Summer Sadness— part of a larger body of Chris’ work (coming soon— ssssshhhh).
Medusa Emergent premiered on the two story high MediaWall at Bath Spa University in the UK in June 2018— its original score featured clarinet contributions from Boja Kragulj. The online version was also released in 2018:
A version of Medusa Emergent: The Medusa Project premiered in performance with collaborator clarinetist Boja Kragulj at The Women Composers Festival of Hartford in April 2018.
The release of Threshold: a new music video filmed at the iconic Silos at Sawyer Yards hit the digital waves in February 2018; plus a screening at the Bechdel Film Festival in Houston; and a presentation about the process of Threshold at The Open Scores Lab at Bath Spa University in April.
Haven’t seen Threshold or haven’t seen it again?:
The Captured Goddess, one of my (many!) new music videos, with music by Dominick DiOrio, screened at the Frame x Frame Film Festival at the Houston Ballet in September 2018.
Eclipse, my flash fantasy/scifi story was published by The Future Fire and The Institute of Classical Studies in Making Monsters: A Speculative and Classical Anthology, and my look at artist-driven music video projects, But What I Really Want to Do is Direct! was published on New Music Box. Checkout this review of the tome by Kendra Leonard.
TRIO: a website of sundry artistic flotsam and jetsam launched, featuring fellow travelers composer Caitlin Rowley and interdisciplinary artist, Leona Jones.
Visit my newly minted mini watercolor shop and check out my coaching for creatives offerings— two ventures launched in late 2018.
Oh, I’m also one heckuva baker, in case you’re wondering— though I don’t really like sweets and I only bake around the holidays— so, I’m like a phantom baker, really.
Liminal and Luminous, a solo exhibit of my large-scale acrylic paintings on canvas opened at CAMIBAart in Austin, Texas in May 2018.
Chameleon Scales II — acrylic on canvas. 36” x 48” — Misha Penton
FLASH FORWARD
Expect more collaborations in 2019 with compatriots Chris Becker, Muriel Louveau, and Boja Kragulj; plus a major new opera-media project: Visible Darkness, inspired by ancient and original sci-fi feminine spider mythos.
Check out my Instagram feed for more posts than you may get on tired old Facebook, including more glimpses into my creative studio space and my ever- and ongoing studio workouts (which I rarely, if ever, posted about in the past!).
I traveled to New England, London and Bath, UK, and a road trip from Jacksonville (to play and present an experimental voice and performance-making workshop with the inimitable clarinetist Boja Kragulj at Jax U), then on to Lauderdale, Miami, and Key West, and a visit with a Hemingway cat, of course— and I’m just about to take off for London, Copenhagen and Sweden— where I’ll be performing and presenting at the symposium Voice and the Unknown at the Inter Arts Center in Malmö; then travels beyond— notes from the road, y’all!
One of the polydactyl Hemingway kitties lounging on his groovy chaise at his rad pad in Key West…
STAY INSPIRED, MY FRIENDS!
“I sing the body electric…
And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?... — ”