Mark Adamo

Mark Adamo (born 1962) is an American composer, librettist and professor of music composition at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. He was born in Philadelphia.

While he has composed the symphonic cantata "Late Victorians, "Four Angels: Concerto for Harp and Orchestra," and six substantial choral works, the composer’s principal work has been for the opera house: the composer and librettist of the highly regarded Little Women, he served as composer-in-residence for New York City Opera from 2001 to 2006, and the company gave the East Coast premiere of his new opera, Lysistrata, or The Nude Goddess, in March–April 2006. Lysistrata, hailed as “a sumptuous love story, poised between comedy and heartbreak” by Alex Ross of The New Yorker, was David Gockley’s last commission for the Houston Grand Opera, which gave the world premiere on 4 March 2005. Since its 1998 premiere by Houston Grand Opera, "Little Women" has been heard in over sixty-five international engagements, including a telecast over the PBS series "Great Performances" in August 2001. The opera was given its Asian premiere in May 2005, when New York City Opera's production of the piece was chosen as the U.S. exhibit for the World Expo in Tokyo and Nagoya; State Opera of South Australia gave the Australian premiere at the Adelaide Festival in May 2007, the International Vocal Arts Institute gave the Israeli premiere in Tel Aviv in July 2008, and Calgary Opera has announced the Canadian premiere for January 2010.

In January 2009, San Francisco Opera announced it had commissioned Adamo to compose both score and libretto for an opera entitled The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, which, in the composers' words, "will draw on the Canonical Gospels, the Gnostic Gospels, and fifty years of scholarship to reimagine the New Testament through the eyes of its lone substantial female character." The company premiered the work on June 19, 2013, with Michael Christie conducting.

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