Jake Heggie

“Arguably the world’s most popular 21st century opera and art song composer” (The Wall Street Journal), Jake Heggie is best know for his acclaimed operas Dead Man Walking, Moby-Dick, It’s A Wonderful Life, Three Decembers, Two Remain, and If I Were You. The operas and his more than 300 art songs have been performed extensively on five continents, championed by some of the world’s most beloved artists. Dead Man Walking has received 70 international productions and two live recordings since its premiere in 2000, making it the most widely performed American opera of our time. The Metropolitan Opera has announced a bold new production of Dead Man Walking for a future season, to be directed by Ivo van Hove and conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Heggie is currently at work on his tenth opera, INTEL­LI­GENCE, conceived and created with librettist Gene Scheer and director/choreographer Ja­wole Zollar, commissioned by Houston Grand Opera. Songs for Murdered Sisters, a song cycle to poetry by Margaret Atwood for baritone Joshua Hopkins, recently received its premiere in an acclaimed film by director James Niebuhr, streamed by Houston Grand Opera and released on Pentatone. Last season featured the world premiere of Intonations: Songs from the Violins of Hope (texts by Gene Scheer), a dramatic song cycle performed by mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and violinist Daniel Hope with string quartet. Recorded live by Pentatone, the work was commissioned to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Pentatone also recently released Unexpected Shadows, featuring mezzo-soprano Jamie Bar­ton, cellist Matt Haimovitz, and Heggie in a recital of the composer’s songs. Jake Heggie lives in San Francisco with his husband, Curt Branom. www.jakeheggie.com