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Digital Audio Series
Key Change is the COC’s new podcast, co-hosted by classical singer and culture critic Robyn Grant-Moran, a member of the COC’s Circle of Artists, alongside stage director, dramaturg and COC Academy graduate Julie McIsaac. Our bi-weekly episodes explore the operagoing experience from a variety of perspectives, offering a fresh take on today's opera issues with special guests from the opera field and beyond.
EPISODE 3: Whose Story Is This?
What stories are we telling? Why do they persist? And how can we tell them differently – in a way that invites more people into the narrative? In this episode, hosts Robyn Grant-Moran and Julie McIsaac talk storytelling with soprano and multi-disciplinary artist Teiya Kasahara and award-winning theatre director Ravi Jain.
Subscribe to Key Change, wherever you get your podcasts:
RAVI JAIN
Toronto-based stage director Ravi Jain is a multi-award-winning artist known for making politically bold and accessible theatrical experiences in both small indie productions and large theatres. As the founding artistic director of Why Not Theatre, Ravi has established himself as an artistic leader for his inventive productions, international producing/collaborations and innovative producing models which are aimed to better support emerging artists to make money from their art.
Ravi was twice shortlisted for the 2016 and 2019 Siminovitch Prize and won the 2012 Pauline McGibbon Award for Emerging Director and the 2016 Canada Council John Hirsch Prize for direction. He is a graduate of the two-year program at École Jacques Lecoq. He was selected to be on the roster of clowns for Cirque du Soliel. Currently, Sea Sick which he co-directed will be on at the National Theatre in London, his adaptation of The Indian epic Mahabarata will premier at the Shaw Festival and What You Won’t Do For Love, starring David Suzuki will premier in Vancouver in 2021.
TEIYA KASAHARA
First-generation Nikkei-Canadian settler Teiya Kasahara is a queer, gender non-binary, interdisciplinary performer-creator. Heralded as “an artist with extraordinary things to say” by The Globe and Mail, Teiya comes from a background of over a decade of singing both traditional and contemporary operatic roles across North America and Europe, most recently Madama Butterfly with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra. Teiya explores the intersections of identity through opera, theatre, electronics, and taiko within their artistic practice, and they are a co-founder of a new Toronto-based company called Amplified Opera.
LINKS:
Why Not Theatre's Mahabharata: https://whynot.theatre/work/mahabharata/
Tapestry Opera's Shanawdithit: https://tapestryopera.com/performances/shanawdithit/
Soundstreams' Two Odysseys: https://soundstreams.ca/performances/touring/two-odysseys/
FEATURED MUSIC:
Key Change theme music: R. Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier; Herbert von Karajan, conductor with the Philharmonia Orchestra; Warner Classics, 1956
Mozart's The Magic Flute; "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen;" Lucia Popp; Otto Klemperer, conductor with the Philharmonia Orchestra; Warner Classics, 1964
Puccini's Manon Lescaut; Act III Intermezzo; Marco Armiliato, conductor with the Munich Radio Orchestra; Deutsche Grammophon, 2016
Strauss' Salome; "Ah! Ich habe deinen Mund geküsst, Jochanaan;" Cheryl Studer, soprano; Giuseppe Sinopoli, conductor with the Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin; Deutsche Grammophon, 1991
MEET OUR CO-HOSTS
ROBYN GRANT-MORAN
Robyn Grant-Moran (Métis) is a classical singer, writer, and a jack of many trades who, in 2018 met the requirements to call herself a Bachelor of the Fine Arts at York University. That same year, Robyn participated in the Performance Criticism Training Program with Generator Toronto where she learned that theatre criticism can be used to push for more inclusive spaces and champion voices less heard and often misunderstood; so of course she fell in love. Since then, she’s been published in Alt.Theatre and Intermission Magazine, won the Nathan Cohen Award for Outstanding Emerging Critic, and joined the Canadian Opera Company’s Circle of Artists, to name a few. Robyn currently resides in Tkaronto (Toronto), weathering the pandemic with her wee rat dog in a box in the sky.
JULIE McISAAC
Canadian stage director Julie McIsaac was named the COC’s first Director/Dramaturg-in-Residence in 2019 and is now Lead Curator of Opera Everywhere, the company's reimagined 20/21 season. A versatile opera and theatre artist, her projects work towards reshaping and revitalizing the stories told on stage. During her residency with the COC, she served as Assistant Director on Joel Ivany's production of Hansel and Gretel (COC) and she is the Dramaturg and Director of the upcoming COC commission Fantasma, composed by COC Composer-in-Residence Ian Cusson with libretto by Colleen Murphy. Julie earned her Master’s degree in Theatre from the University of York (UK) and is also a graduate of Carleton University (Music) and the Canadian College of Performing Arts (Theatre Performance and Playwriting). www.juliemcisaac.com
