[NEohioPAL] Oberlin to Premiere Jazz Opera by Harvey Pekar and Dan Plonsey on Jan. 31, 2009

[Charlotte Landrum]

*Leave Me Alone!*, a Jazz Opera by Harvey Pekar and Dan Plonsey, to Premiere
at Oberlin and via Webcast on Jan. 31, 2009 American Splendor *Icon Pekar
Focuses His Sardonic Wit on the Everyday Struggles of Avant-Garde Artists,
with Music from Cleveland-born Composer and Saxophonist Plonsey*

OBERLIN, OHIO (December 12, 2008)— The iconic underground comic book author
Harvey Pekar will make his operatic debut at the Oberlin Conservatory of
Music in *Leave Me Alone!*, an autobiographical jazz opera. A collaboration
by two Cleveland natives, the opera combines a libretto by Pekar with music
by saxophonist and composer Dan Plonsey. *Leave Me Alone! *depicts the lives
of its creators in quotidian detail while asking big questions about the
place of cutting-edge art in our society. Amidst the demands and
interruptions of day-to-day life, Pekar and Plonsey wonder, how can artists
carve out time for their creative work? More importantly, they ask, how do
we cultivate a society that is receptive to the avant-garde? The opera,
which is presented by Oberlin in cooperation with Real Time Opera, will
receive its world premiere in a free performance on Saturday, January 31,
2009, at 8 p.m. in Finney Chapel. The performance will also be streamed live
to an international audience online at
www.LeaveMeAloneOpera.com<http://www.leavemealoneopera.com/>.


"There ought to be a place for cutting edge work," says Pekar, who believes
that many major cultural institutions have shirked their responsibility to
support contemporary art and challenge audiences. "I thought there wasn't
much out there being said about this, and I wanted to open up some
discussion."

Called "the blue-collar Mark Twain" by *Variety*, Pekar is best known for
his autobiographical comic book series *American Splendor*, in which he
elevated the mostly mundane details of his life as a working-class
Clevelander to the level of art. The series won the American Book Award and
a film adaptation took top honors at the Cannes and Sundance film festivals.
Composer Plonsey, who was born and raised in Cleveland Heights, has been a
lifelong proponent of new music, and has founded several new music series in
and around his current home in El Cerrito, California.

"The opera, simply put, is the non-fictional account of its own creation,"
says Plonsey. In the story, Pekar and Plonsey engage in discussions about
music, the state of the avant-garde, and the creation of the opera itself
from their Cleveland and San Francisco Bay Area living rooms. A taped
conversation between Pekar and comics illustrator Robert Crumb provides an
additional perspective on the opera's themes. The wives of Plonsey and
Pekar, Mantra Ben-ya'akova Plonsey and Joyce Brabner (who portray themselves
in the production), enter the plot, as does Josh Smith, the opera's music
director. Oberlin Conservatory students will also be involved in the
production; four singers will double the protagonists on stage and an
ensemble of six jazz musicians will back them in the pit, playing alongside
Plonsey and Smith.

Plonsey and Pekar are deeply committed to the notion that art transcends
distinctions of class and hence ought to be available to all. Accordingly,
both the live performance and the webcast of the opera will be offered free
of charge. Those wishing to support the production may do so by purchasing a
comic about the opera, written by Pekar and illustrated by Joseph Remnant,
at www.LeaveMeAloneOpera.com <http://www.leavemealoneopera.com/>. The comic
is available as a signed, limited-edition print ($300) or digital download
($5). Visitors may also purchase a cell-phone ring tone featuring Harvey's
inimitable voice ($5) on the site.

*Performers and Production Team*
Several of the performers in the opera will play themselves, including Dan
Plonsey, Harvey Pekar, Mantra Ben-ya'akova Plonsey, and Joyce Brabner.
Oberlin Conservatory and College singers Patty Stubel '09, Kate Rosen '11,
Joanna Lemle '10, and Christopher Rice '10 will double the characters on
stage; students, including dummer Noah Hecht '10, trombonist Aaron Salituro
'11, saxophonist David Schwartz '12, and trumpeter Gregory Zilboorg '13,
will also play in the band.

The production team includes Paul Schick, executive producer for Real Time
Opera; Josh Smith, musical director; Associate Professor of Opera Jonathon
Field, stage director; Robert Katkowski, set designer; Barry Steele,
lighting designer; Victoria Vaughan, stage manager; and Dan Michalak,
musical preparation. The webcast will be produced with help from Oberlin
professional staff and students, including Associate Dean of Technology and
Facilities Michael Lynn, Director of Audio Services Paul Eachus, Director of
Networking Barron Hulver, and Technology Consultant Todd Brown.

*About the Librettist: Harvey Pekar*
Harvey Pekar, a native of Cleveland, Ohio, is best known for his
autobiographical comic book series *American Splendor*. Pekar began
self-publishing the series in 1976, at the urging of friend and noted
illustrator Robert Crumb. Unique among comic books of the time, Pekar's
stories documented the minutiae of his daily life: working as a file clerk
in the VA hospital, grocery shopping, or simply searching for a lost set of
keys. In 1987, Pekar was honored with the American Book Award for his work
on the series, and in 2003 *American Splendor* was adapted as a movie to
widespread critical acclaim. An avid record collector, Pekar began his
writing career as a book and music critic, with a particular interest in
jazz. His reviews have been published in the *Boston Herald*, the *Austin
Chronicle*, *Jazz Times*, *Urban Dialect* (Cleveland), and *Down
Beat*magazine. Pekar's commentary for public radio station WKSU,
starting in
1999, won him several journalism awards, including the 2001 Regional Edward
R. Murrow Award for Best Writing. Pekar was a frequent guest on *Late Night
with David Letterman* in the late 1980s; his infamous on-air criticism of
General Electric got him temporarily banned from the show, although he did
make two more appearances in the early 1990s. In 2001, Pekar retired from
his job as a file clerk at the local VA Hospital. He lives in Cleveland
Heights with his wife Joyce and their foster daughter Danielle.

*About the Composer: Dan Plonsey*
Saxophonist and composer Dan Plonsey was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio.
Drawing inspiration from musicians as diverse as Sun Ra and Charles Ives,
Plonsey's music defies easy categorization. "No doubt," writes *All About
Jazz*, "Plonsey is a creative soul who possesses a Renaissance spirit." In
recent years Plonsey's instrumental work has focused on large ensembles of
mixed instrumentation and ensembles of multiple saxophones. His more than
200 works for large and small ensembles include commissions from Bang on a
Can, the Berkeley Symphony, and New Music Works in Santa Cruz. He has
written numerous operas, including three collaborations with Paul Schick of
Real Time Opera. From 1994-99, he was the resident composer and chief
librettist for Disaster Opera Theater in El Cerrito, California, where he
currently lives. He also founded the weekly Beanbender's creative music
concert series in Berkeley, which is ongoing on an occasional basis. Plonsey
earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in math and music from Yale University and
a Master of Arts degree in composition from Mills College. He has studied
composition with Martin Bresnick, David Lewin, Anthony Braxton, and, more
briefly, Roscoe Mitchell and Terry Riley. He currently lives in the San
Francisco Bay Area with his wife Mantra and their two sons, Cleveland and
Mischa.

*About the Director: Jonathon Field*
Jonathon Field is one of America's more versatile and popular stage
directors, having directed more than 100 productions in all four corners of
the United States. He served as artistic director of Lyric Opera Cleveland
for six seasons, where he presented the operas of Mozart, Rossini, and
Donizetti as well as the Ohio premieres of works by John Adams, Mark Adamo,
and Philip Glass. Several of Field's productions for the Lyric Opera of
Chicago were so successful they were repeated at the Illinois Humanities
Festival with Stephen Sondheim as keynote speaker. His productions for San
Francisco Opera's Western Opera Theatre and Seattle Opera have played in
more than 20 states. Over the past eight years Field has directed 10
productions with the Arizona Opera, being deemed by the press "their most
perceptive stage director." In February 2007, Field directed—at Oberlin and
at Miller Theatre in New York City—the critically acclaimed U.S. premiere of
*Lost Highway*, a dramatic music theater work by noted Austrian composer
Olga Neuwirth based on the David Lynch film. This is Field's 11th season as
director of Oberlin Opera Theater.

*About Real Time Opera: Artistic Director Paul Schick*
Under the artistic direction of Paul Schick, Real Time Opera (RTO) has
presented world premieres of new operas in New York, San Francisco, and New
England, where the company is based. In 2005, RTO premiered
*Feynman*(2005), a chamber opera by composer Jack Vees, with a
libretto by Schick,
about Nobel Prize-winning physicist and cult figure Richard Feynman, with SO
Percussion as the pit orchestra. The opera premiered at the Norfolk Chamber
Music Festival and was reprised in Brattleboro, Vermont at Dartmouth
College, in Concord, New Hampshire, and in New York at the Knitting Factory.
A future online production of *Feynman* from Yale is in the planning stages.
RTO's debut production, in 2003, was *Korczak's Orphans* by composer Adam
Silverman and librettist Susan Gubernat. Based on the life of Polish
pediatrician, orphanage director, and Holocaust martyr Janosz Korczak, the
opera was also performed by New York City Opera on their VOX Festival of new
American works. RTO's second production, *Hawaiian Tan Ratface*, a
quasi-opera by John Trubee, premiered at San Francisco's Studio Z in 2004.
Schick is librettist and producer of the forthcoming music-dance-theater
piece *A House in Bali* by composer Evan Ziporyn, scheduled to premiere in
Bali, Indonesia, followed by an international tour, in 2009. As an
administrator, Schick has worked with Opera North, Boston Lyric Opera, the
American Gamelan Institute, and the composers' collective Frog Peak Music.
He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Hamilton College and a
Master of Philosophy degree and PhD in musicology from Yale University.

*The Oberlin Conservatory of Music*, founded in 1865 and situated amid the
intellectual vitality of Oberlin College since 1867, is the oldest
continuously operating conservatory in the United States. The Conservatory
is renowned internationally as a professional music school of the highest
caliber and has been pronounced a "national treasure" by the *Washington
Post*. Oberlin's alumni have gone on to achieve illustrious careers in all
aspects of the serious music world. Many of them have attained stature as
solo performers, composers, and conductors, among them Jennifer Koh, Steven
Isserlis, Denyce Graves, Franco Farina, Christopher Robertson, Lisa Saffer,
George Walker, Christopher Rouse, David Zinman, and Robert Spano. All of the
members of the contemporary sextet eighth blackbird, most of the members of
the International Contemporary Ensemble, and many of the members of Apollo's
Fire are Oberlin alumni. In chamber music, the Miró, Pacifica, Juillard, and
Fry Street quartets, among other small ensembles, include Oberlin-trained
musicians, who also can be found in major orchestras and opera companies
throughout the world. For more information about Oberlin, please visit
www.oberlin.edu/con <http://new.oberlin.edu/conservatory/>.

*CALENDAR LISTING *
Saturday, January 31, 2009, 8 p.m.
The Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Real Time Opera present
*Leave Me Alone!*
Libretto by Harvey Pekar
Music by Dan Plonsey
Josh Smith, music director
Jonathon Field, stage director
Live on stage:
Finney Chapel
90 North Professor Street
Oberlin, Ohio
Online:
www.LeaveMeAloneOpera.com <http://www.leavemealoneopera.com/>
FREE
Oberlin Conservatory 24-Hour Concert Hotline: 440-775-6933


-- 
Charlotte Landrum
Associate Director of Conservatory Media Relations
Oberlin Conservatory of Music
39 West College Street
Oberlin, OH 44074
www.oberlin.edu/con
Voice: 440.775.5474
Fax: 440.775.5457
charlotte.landrum at oberlin.edu
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