PRAISE FOR OUR TEAM
CREATIVE TEAM
CREATIVE TEAM
DANIELLE BIRRITTELLA
Danielle Birrittella is a California-based performer, creator, and composer of new operatic work whose projects have been lauded as “a breath of pure creative power” (Opera Wire). Danielle’s extensive background in opera and experimental theatre yield an artist with an instinct for pushing the boundaries of contemporary classical music.
As a creator of new works, Danielle bridges new music, devised performance, and film with a particular focus on collaborative engagement with poets, dancers, and visual artists. Her dual roles as creator and performer of her operatic projects deliver a unique level of authenticity and intimacy to her pieces. In addition, her work as a practicing depth psychotherapist heavily influences her creative endeavors. By weaving layers of symbolism, archetypal motifs, and emotional insight, she explores the psyche’s capacity for healing and transformation.
Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Opera Wire, The Financial Times, and on NPR. She is the creator of Sonnets To Orpheus, an immersive song cycle set to Rainer Maria Rilke’s poetry, and co-creator of Magdalene, a chamber opera set to Marie Howe’s poetry scored by fourteen female composers.
Danielle’s “high, crystalline soprano” has been said to be “mesmerizing… as hypnotic to watch as she is to hear” (The Wall Street Journal, Parterre). As a performer she is “exposed, intelligent, earnest… powerful and persuasive” and has a “radiant, nearly angelic presence” (The New York Times, The Financial Times).
She holds degrees from California Institute of the Arts (MFA), Pacifica Graduate Institute (MA), and New York University (BA), and is a member of SAG/AFTRA and ASCAP. In addition to her artistic work, Danielle maintains a clinical depth psychotherapy private practice, The Intuitive Voice.
ANNIKA SOCOLOFSKY
Annika Socolofsky (composer) is a composer and avant folk vocalist who explores corners and colors of the voice frequently deemed to be “untrained” and not “classical.” Described as “unbearably moving” (Gramophone) and “just the right balance between edgy precision and freewheeling exuberance” (The Guardian), her music erupts from the embodied power of the human voice and is communicated through mediums ranging from orchestral and operatic works to unaccompanied folk ballads and unapologetically joyous Dolly Parton covers.
Annika writes extensively for her own voice, including composing a growing repertoire of “feminist rager-lullabies” titled Don’t say a word, which serves to confront centuries of damaging lessons taught to young children by retelling old lullaby texts for a new, queer era. Annika has taken Don’t say a word on the road, performing with ensembles including Eighth Blackbird, New European Ensemble, Albany Symphony, Knoxville Symphony, Latitude 49, and Contemporaneous. Her follow-up feminist rager-lullaby song cycle in collaboration with ~Nois, titled I Tell You Me, was recognized by the Chicago Tribune as “grotesquely gorgeous… among the most captivating compositions heard the whole festival [Ear Taxi 2021]” and was included in their “Chicago’s Top 10 for classical music, opera and jazz that defined 2021.” Recordings of her music are available on New Amsterdam, Bright Shiny Things, Naxos, and Innova record labels. Her research focuses on contemporary vocal music, using the music of Dolly Parton to create a pedagogical approach to composition that is inclusive of a wide range of vocal qualities, genres, and colors. She is Assistant Professor of Composition at the University of Colorado Boulder, and is the recipient of the 2021 Gaudeamus Award. She holds her PhD in Composition from Princeton University.
CLARESSINKA ANDERSON
Claressinka Anderson (librettist) is a Los Angeles-based poet and writer. She is the winner of the 2022 Michelle Boisseau Poetry Prize, and her poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Best New Poets, Los Angeles Review of Books, Boulevard, Pleiades, Bear Review, bedfellows, Chiron Review, Autre Magazine, Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles (Carla), and elsewhere, as well as in the anthology Choice Words: Writers on Abortion (Haymarket Books, 2020). Anderson has worked as an art dealer, advisor and curator, and was the founder of the gallery and art salon Marine Projects (2009-2017).
Through her ongoing collaborations with artists, her work engages the interstitial spaces of contemporary art, literature, and music. Anderson holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College. Born and raised in London, she lives in Los Angeles and dreams about rain.
HANA S. KIM
Hana S. Kim (projection designer) is a video and scenic designer with experience across film, theater, and public art.
Her work has been seen in theaters across the country, including at the Public Theater in NYC, A.C.T. in SF, SF Symphony, LA Opera, Geffen Playhouse, Pasadena playhouse, Baltimore Center Stage, Opera Colorado, and South Coast Rep. Her art installations have been shown at the Annenberg Space of Photography in LA, Jordan Downs Recreation Center, Occidental College, and Baryshinikov Arts Center in NY.
Hana is a recipient of the Princess Grace Award in Theater Design, Richard Sherwood Award from CTG, and Kinetic Lighting Award for distinguished achievement in theatrical design from LA Drama Critics Circle. Her designs have been recognized by the Helen Hayes Award, Stage Raw Awards, StageSceneLA Awards, and Bay Area Theater Critics Circle Awards. She is a member of United Scenic Artists Local 829.
Her most recent projects include the Magdalene at Prototype NYC, Sweet Land with the Industry Opera in LA, Emerging Voices Concert with Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and On the Other Side with MarikeSplint.
STEPHANIE ZALETEL
Stephanie Zaletel (choreographer) is a dance artist, movement facilitator, dream-tender, caregiver, environmentalist, plant-based eater and cook, and mental health advocate currently residing in Los Angeles. Stephanie’s early career was threaded together with prolific creative practices inspired by her quest to access and create dance experiences in trauma-aware, consciously feminist-led spaces, and in 2015 she founded szalt to deepen this learning and expression. As a freelance artist, Stephanie performs and creates works for musicians, short films, dance, opera, and theater companies nationally and internationally.
In addition to their work with szalt, Stephanie has created works for musical artists, films, dance, opera, and theater companies nationally and internationally including collaborations with clipping., C. Prinz, Los Angeles Contemporary Dance Company, Beth Morrison Projects, and Lars Jan’s Early Morning Opera. In 2022 Stephanie was a guest artist at California Institute of the Arts and Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University as well as an Artist in Residence at Loghaven in Knoxville, TN.
Stephanie holds a BFA in Dance Performance and Choreography from the California Institute of the Arts and a CE Certificate in Somatic Psychotherapy and Practices from Antioch University..
MARC LOWENSTEIN
Marc Lowenstein (music director) is a conductor, composer and educator. He is the founding Music Director of the Industry, Los Angeles’ groundbreaking and widely acclaimed experimental opera company. With the Industry, he has helped lead works that challenge the operatic paradigm, including Chacon and Du Yun’s Sweet Land, Hopscotch, Cerrone’s Invisible Cities, and LeBaron’s Crescent Cities. He lead three seasons of the Industry’s First Take showcase and the workshop of Akiho’s Galileo. With the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Industry he was music director for Lou Harrison’s Young Caesar and Cage’s EUROPERAS.
Outside of the Industry, Marc has been Music Director for several opera premieres including John King’s Dice Thrown, and the American premieres of George Aperghis’ L’Origine des Espèces, Veronika Krausas’ The Immortal Thoughts of Lady MacBeth, Stephen Oliver’s Peach Blossom Fan, and Murray Schaeffer’s Loving.
He has also worked with the LA Phil as a cover conductor, leading the premiere of Hermann’s The Call, and assisting on Hearne’s PLACE and Norman’s Trip to the Moon. With Beth Morrison Productions he co-conducted the premiere of Danielle Birrittella’s Magdalene and conducted on New York City Opera’s Vox opera workshop program for four years.
He is an active composer, writing music infused with a searching sense of narrative and mysticism. He has been called “a terrific singer” (LA Times), an “assured conductor” (New York Times), and “raptly lyrical” (New Yorker). Marc has taught at CalArts since 1996, and teaches courses centered around a humanistic approach to Music Theory and composition. He has a CalArts Coursera Class called ‘Approaching Music Theory’ and loves talking about Music Theory and the fact that it doesn’t really exist.