It was fascinating to watch the singers and musicians tackling our new production of THE LIGHTHOUSE, a tremendously difficult 1980 work by Peter Maxwell Davies, falling “in trust” with the amazingly talented conductor Nicole Paiement. They couldn’t say enough about the importance of her conducting to their superb execution of the piece and everyone was delighted to hear that she would be returning this season to conduct DEATH AND THE POWERS by Tod Machover.
Now comes word that Maestra Paiement has been elected to the Board of Directors of Opera America; one of four new members and, the fact is, it couldn’t happen to a nicer and more talented person. I’ll paste her short bio below.
Nicole Paiement, Founder, Artistic Director, and Conductor, Opera Parallèle Nicole Paiement founded Opera Parallèle with the primary intent of promoting contemporary music and opera. Paiement has since gained an international reputation as a conductor and specialist of contemporary opera and contemporary music. Her recordings include many world premiere works, and she has toured extensively in the U.S. and Asia. As artistic director of Opera Parallèle, she conducted the 2007 world premiere of Lou Harrison’s Young Caesar, the West Coast premiere of John Rea’s re-orchestration of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck (2010), the San Francisco premiere of Philip Glass’ Orphée (2011), the world premiere performance of Jacques Desjardins’ re-orchestration of John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby (2012) and the Bay Area premiere of Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar (2013). Paiement is an active guest conductor both in the U.S. and abroad. For The Dallas Opera, she recently conducted a new production of Peter Maxwell Davies’ The Lighthouse and she will return in January 2014 to conduct Tod Machover’s Death and the Powers. Paiement is also artistic director of the BluePrint Project — a new music concert series sponsored by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She is on faculty at the University of California at Santa Cruz, where she conducts the orchestra and opera productions.
Congratulations from all of us at the Dallas Opera!
Suzanne Calvin, Manager/Director Media and PR