Organization

Conductor

Nicole Paiement

Stage director

Brian Staufenbiel

Singer

Soprano

Maggie Finnegan

Sophia

Mezzo-soprano

Kindra Scharich

Anna

Baritone

Bradley Kynard

Victoria Ko

Emma

Samantha Fung-Lee

Opera Parallèle

Sophia’s Forest

San Francisco

United States

Grace Cathedral

Sophia’s Forest Beecher

Public

Approved

I.  Dream Nr. 1
II. Dream Nr. 2 (5:43)

Written for string quartet, custom music box, and electronically-controlled sound sculptures, “Sophia’s Wide Awake Dreams” (2017) was adapted from Lembit Beecher’s opera “Sophia’s Forest.” These two movements suggest the inner imaginative world of the protagonist, a 9-year old recent immigrant to the United States named Sophia. In the opera, Sophia confides in a music box that gradually comes alive in her mind, a mechanical creature both comforting and dangerous, who shields her from the outside world.

The sound sculptures used in the recording were built in collaboration with the ExCITe Center at Drexel University. The music box is a vintage Thorens music box modified by Jonathan Herz of the Herz Music Box Company to play a melody Lembit composed.

Recorded and produced by Ryan Streber at Oktaven Audio. Video by Four/Ten Media. From the Aizuri Quartet’s GRAMMY-nominated debut album Blueprinting (New Amsterdam Records, 2018).

Sophia’s Forest explores the lasting effects of the immigrant experience on families and the ways children use their imaginations to cope with trauma and find healing. The innovative opera tells the story of a nine-year-old recent immigrant to the US who, through a traumatic journey, escaped the chaos of a civil war in her homeland.
Nine electronically-controlled sound sculptures, designed and operated by composer Lembit Beecher, placed across the stage are a direct outgrowth of Sophia’s memories: bike wheels recall Sophia’s youthful adventures with her sister Emma, and wine glasses become a central part of her mother Anna’s coping once the family moves to America.

English

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