Songs and a Scandal: FF Collective Presents Artonic Quartet and soprano Tasha Koontz
Tuesday, November 7, 2023 | 7:30pm
Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice Theater
Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice Theater
Artonic Quartet is thrilled to partner with soprano Tasha Koontz, FF Collective, and the University of San Diego to present a program premiering music from The Schemes and Scandals of "Fat Leonard" Francis. The California Festival is a statewide celebration of new music in November coordinated by the San Diego Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and San Francisco.
Experience modern sonic storytelling with this dramatic ensemble composed of Artonic Quartet, made up of San Diego Symphony members, joined by soprano Tasha Koontz, featuring music by Caroline Shaw, John Adams, and San Diego's own Tommy Dougherty. Each piece on the program has its own tale to tell, including the world premiere of music from Dougherty's Schemes and Scandals of Fat Leonard, based on a true story of epic bribery and blackmail aimed at the U.S. Navy, and selections from Evergreen, the newest classical album from Pulitzer Prize winner Caroline Shaw where the singer improvises fresh melodies in a sound world where Baroque style string playing meets Regina Spektor. Artonic has paired these vocal works with masterpieces of the 21st century quartet repertoire including selections from John Adams' John's Book of Alleged Dances in which the quartet performs with a prerecorded electronic track and the meditative Quartet Satz by Phillip Glass. The program will also include a presentation by Robert Gonzales, the world's leading "Fat Leonard" scholar.
Creating new music is expensive! Please consider joining our list of supporters funding this work.
Experience modern sonic storytelling with this dramatic ensemble composed of Artonic Quartet, made up of San Diego Symphony members, joined by soprano Tasha Koontz, featuring music by Caroline Shaw, John Adams, and San Diego's own Tommy Dougherty. Each piece on the program has its own tale to tell, including the world premiere of music from Dougherty's Schemes and Scandals of Fat Leonard, based on a true story of epic bribery and blackmail aimed at the U.S. Navy, and selections from Evergreen, the newest classical album from Pulitzer Prize winner Caroline Shaw where the singer improvises fresh melodies in a sound world where Baroque style string playing meets Regina Spektor. Artonic has paired these vocal works with masterpieces of the 21st century quartet repertoire including selections from John Adams' John's Book of Alleged Dances in which the quartet performs with a prerecorded electronic track and the meditative Quartet Satz by Phillip Glass. The program will also include a presentation by Robert Gonzales, the world's leading "Fat Leonard" scholar.
Creating new music is expensive! Please consider joining our list of supporters funding this work.
Tasha Koontz
Native Hawaiian soprano Tasha Hokuao Koontz has lent her “accurate, powerful voice” (Broadway World) to a gallery of leading operatic ladies and has been recognized by Parterre Box for her “sumptuous, gleaming lyric instrument” and by Opera Wire for her “secure silvery high notes.” In 2023 she returned to San Diego Opera to perform the roles of Nella in Gianni Schicchi and Suor Genovieffa in Suor Angelica. A company favorite, Koontz debuted with San Diego Opera as Annina in La Traviata in 2017, and subsequently performed the roles of Edith in Pirates of Penzance, Frasquita in Carmen and High Priestess in Aïda, and covered the role of Mimì in La Bohème sung by Ana Maria Martinez. She also sang the role of Catrina in a 2019 workshop performance of El último sueño de Frida y Diego, written by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Nilo Cruz and Latin GRAMMY® Award-winning composer Gabriela Lena Frank. Ms. Koontz subsequently originated the role of Frida Image 1 in the world premiere performances of Frank’s opera in 2022. In San Diego Opera’s 2021 concert entitled, “One Amazing Night,” Koontz “wowed with a knockout performance” (San Diego Union Tribune). Other 2023 performances include a debut with the Camarada Chamber Ensemble singing Brahms Op.91 Zwei Gesänge and Bach Cantata BWV 209, the Brahms Requiem with the La Jolla Symphony & Chorus, the Rachmaninov Vocalise and Poulenc Gloria with the Helena Symphony, and the world premiere of a two person chamber opera written by composer Polina Nazaykinskaya and librettist Konstanin Soukhovetski with the prestigious Garth Newel Piano Quartet at the Garth Newel Summer Festival.
Ms.Koontz returned to San Diego Symphony in 2022 to sing selections from Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt under Conductor Laureate Jahja Ling as well as to cover the soprano solos in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Ms. Koontz also had the honor of being invited to participate in a master class led by esteemed conductor Riccardo Muti of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra singing selections from Un Ballo in Maschera. Other 2022 performance highlights include Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Glacier Symphony Orchestra, Handel’s Messiah with the San Diego Festival chorus & Orchestra as well as the Mainly Mozart Youth Orchestra, Mozart’s Requiem with the Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra, Schubert’s Mass in G with the San Diego Festival Chorus & Orchestra, and a concert performance of Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni with the Fortissima Collective.
In 2019, Koontz made her debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to great acclaim, bringing her “fulsome, penetrating soprano voice” and “unflappable poise” (Chicago Sun Times) to the role of High Priestess in Verdi's Aïda under the baton of Maestro Riccardo Muti. Koontz was slated to make her return to the La Jolla Symphony & Chorus in 2022 in Mahler's Second "Resurrection” Symphony but, unfortunately, due to the covid-19 pandemic those performances were canceled. She is scheduled to return for the performances of Brahms’ Requiem in 2023. There, she has previously been seen as a soloist in Bach’s Cantata No. 106, Orff’s Carmina Burana, and Mahler’s Fourth Symphony.
Ms.Koontz returned to San Diego Symphony in 2022 to sing selections from Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt under Conductor Laureate Jahja Ling as well as to cover the soprano solos in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Ms. Koontz also had the honor of being invited to participate in a master class led by esteemed conductor Riccardo Muti of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra singing selections from Un Ballo in Maschera. Other 2022 performance highlights include Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Glacier Symphony Orchestra, Handel’s Messiah with the San Diego Festival chorus & Orchestra as well as the Mainly Mozart Youth Orchestra, Mozart’s Requiem with the Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra, Schubert’s Mass in G with the San Diego Festival Chorus & Orchestra, and a concert performance of Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni with the Fortissima Collective.
In 2019, Koontz made her debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to great acclaim, bringing her “fulsome, penetrating soprano voice” and “unflappable poise” (Chicago Sun Times) to the role of High Priestess in Verdi's Aïda under the baton of Maestro Riccardo Muti. Koontz was slated to make her return to the La Jolla Symphony & Chorus in 2022 in Mahler's Second "Resurrection” Symphony but, unfortunately, due to the covid-19 pandemic those performances were canceled. She is scheduled to return for the performances of Brahms’ Requiem in 2023. There, she has previously been seen as a soloist in Bach’s Cantata No. 106, Orff’s Carmina Burana, and Mahler’s Fourth Symphony.
Watch a sample of the Handbag Aria
Who is Leonard Glenn Francis?
Leonard Francis
In 2013, Malaysian military contractor Leonard Glenn Francis (known as “Fat Leonard”) was arrested in San Diego in an NCIS raid after years of maintaining control of the U.S. Navy’s massive Seventh Fleet by subording Navy officers with lavish parties and extravagant gifts which included luxury goods and prostitutes. At his hands, the Navy—a pillar of the American understanding of honor— had fallen prey to unthinkable corruption and the largest military security breach since the Cold War. Schemes and Scandals unearths the unheard female voices buried in the rubble of the far-reaching but largely under-publicized scandal to ask what is left when “honor,” patriotism, and the men who cling to them crumble.
Schemes and Scandals Creative Team:
Robert Gonzales
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Historical Consultant Robert Gonzales, Captain, U. S. Navy (retired), is a 30 year veteran and PhD candidate in Organizational Leadership at the University of San Diego. A native of New Jersey, he has been stationed in Japan, Bahrain, and 6 U.S. states, and numerous at sea deployments. Positions include Fleet Staffs, Joint Staff at the Pentagon, command of an AEGIS Destroyer, and Commodore of a Task Force overseas. His assignment to the U.S. Navy SEVENTH Fleet staff from 2006 - 2009 coincided with the height of the GDMA/Fat Leonard Bribery Scandal. He holds a BS in Mathematics and MS in Foreign Affairs and Strategy. His PhD studies are centered around organizational leadership, ethics, and professionalism, and includes qualitative and quantitative research experience and an ongoing U.S. military case study analysis into the GDMA/Fat Leonard Scandal.
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Tommy Dougherty
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Composer Tommy Dougherty (b. 1990) is a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and is a composer of orchestral, chamber, and solo works. In the summer of 2023, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s will premiere a new work by Tommy through his participation in the DeGaetano Composition Institute where he has worked closely with mentor composer Anna Clyne. Tommy is also currently in residence at the Winterthur Museum as a Maker-Creator Fellowship Scholar. Over the past several years, Tommy’s music has been performed by the Johnstown Symphony Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Modern Violin Ensemble (MoVE), Alarm Will Sound, the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra, Kinetic Ensemble, Thornton School Symphony Orchestra, Shepherd School Symphony Orchestra, and Eastman Philharmonia. In 2019, Tommy was the recipient of the ASCAP Leo Kaplan Award, and in 2016 and 2017, two ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Awards. In 2018, the Modern Violin Ensemble (MoVE) premiered Extraordinary Instruments, a violin quartet that aims to bring awareness to issues of gun culture in the United States. As a violinist, Tommy currently serves as Acting Section Violin with the San Diego Symphony.
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Emma Grimsley
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Librettist Emma Grimsley led the North American touring company of The Phantom of the Opera as Christine Daaé through its closing in February 2020. A passionate explorer of the intersection between opera and musical theatre, Grimsley has appeared as Johanna in Sweeney Todd with New Orleans Opera, Tzeitel in Fiddler on the Roof with Shreveport Opera, Cunegonde in Candide with Ash Lawn Opera, and Sally in Jerome Kern’s Sally with Light Opera of New York (recording available). In 2016, Grimsley made her Off-Broadway debut as Barbara Conti in Vid Guerriero's ¡Figaro! (90210). She reprised her role during the show’s second Off-Broadway run in 2017. Grimsley, a champion of new works, made her Nashville Opera debut and her Des Moines Metro Opera debut as Young Alyce in Tom Cipullo’s Glory Denied. She appeared in a workshop of Theo Popov and Tony Asaro’s new opera The Halloween Tree with American Lyric Theatre and premiered selections from Logan Skelton’s song cycle Letters to Santa. During her time as a Young Artist at The Glimmerglass Festival, Grimsley originated the roles of Reed and LadyFinger in the world premiere of Laura Karpman and Kelly Rourke’s Wilde Tales. Grimsley made her operatic debut in 2014 as Lucia in Vespertine Opera’s production of The Rape of Lucretia. Since then, other favorite engagements have included Papagena in Die Zauberflöte with Pacific MusicWorks under the musical direction of Grammy Award winner Stephen Stubbs, Ruth Putnam in The Crucible at The Glimmerglass Festival, and Minette in the West Coast premiere of Hanz Werner Henze’s The English Cat at the University of Southern California. In addition to her time at Glimmerglass, Grimsley has spent summers at The Seagle Music Colony, where she played Guenevere in Lerner and Lowe’s Camelot and Gretel in Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel, as well as at the Aspen Music Festival and School. Grimsley is also a published author.
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FAQ
Where do I park? Where is the theater? Enter the campus off Linda Vista Road at the West gate. After you pass the information guard booth follow the road as it curves to the right, then just as you crest the hill enter the parking structure underground to your right. This is labeled G1 on the map. Parking is free after 7pm. Take the elevator to the 1st floor, and the theater is around the corner to the right off the elevator. If you're walking or taking Uber the theater is just off the main courtyard entrance, under the big rotunda.
