This is quite a coup for the UNT School of Music: They’ve just announced that Jake Heggie will be their artist in residence for the upcoming academic year. The composer is fresh from staging his new opera Moby-Dick at Dallas Opera, where it received glowing reviews. Closer to home, his opera version of Dead Man Walking played at Fort Worth Opera last summer, and before that the Modern spotlighted his vocal music. UNT’s music students can look forward to his tutelage, while the rest of us can look forward to more concerts of his music at UNT in the coming months.
If you can’t wait that long, here’s a performance of his insinuatingly jazzy vocal work “A Route to the Sky,” the text of which was written by opera singer Frederica von Stade based on an incident that happened to her when she was a child.
Yes this is quite a coup for UNT and will raise their profile nationally – heck – internationally. But it’s more than that. Having worked with Jake during “Dead Man Walking,” I can vouch that he’s a true pro and an all around great guy. UNT is lucky to have him!
PS: He was working in the PR dept at San Francisco Opera when he was approached to compose “Dead Man Walking” – a major world premiere. Talk about an amazing break!