Awakenings
Music
Tobias Picker »
Set and costume design
Miriam Buether »
Lighting design
Yaron Abulafia »
Described by BBC Music Magazine as "displaying a distinctively soulful style that is one of the glories of the current musical scene," Tobias began his professional life while still a teenager as an improviser for the Martha Graham Dance Company. He has since had works commissioned and performed by the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra (BBC Proms), Munich Philharmonic, The Zurich Tonhalle and the Helsinki Philharmonic. His opera, Emmeline (1996), was commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera, and his opera Thérèse Raquin (2001) has been produced by the opera houses of Dallas, San Diego and Montreal and was given its UK première at the Linbury ROH2 in 2006. An American Tragedy, (2005) was commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera.
Tobias’ adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox (1998) was commissioned by The Roald Dahl Foundation for the Los Angeles Opera. Opera Holland Park (UK) commissioned a chamber version of Fantastic Mr. Fox, which premièred in London in July 2010, and English Touring Opera will launch a three-month UK tour of the opera in March 2011. Tobias has received numerous honours including a Charles Ives Scholarship, Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, and the prestigious Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His music has been recorded on Virgin Classics, Sony Classics, Chandos, Ondine and Wergo, among other labels. Tobias Picker: Keys to the City (WER 66952) is a complete collection of the composer’s solo piano music, performed by Ursula Oppens. He is currently working on a new piano quintet commissioned by Da Camera Houston for the Brentano Quartet, and a new opera for world premiere in 2015. Tobias Picker’s music is published exclusively by Schott Music.
Set and costume designs include A Couple of Poor Polish Speaking Romanians (Soho Theatre), Cinderella (Göteborg Opera Ballet Company. Sets only), Hartstocht (Introdans in The Netherlands), Sacrifice (Welsh National Opera. Costumes only), The Bacchae (National Theatre of Scotland, Edinburgh Festival and Lyric Hammersmith), My Child and The Wonderful World of Dissocia (Royal Court Downstairs), Generations (Young Vic), Long Time Dead (Plymouth Theatre Royal), Pool (No Water) (Plymouth Theatre Royal, Lyric Hammersmith, Frantic Assembly), Realism (National Theatre of Scotland), Unprotected (Traverse/Liverpool Everyman), The Bee (Soho Theatre), Trade (RSC and Soho Theatre), The Death of Kinghoffer (Edinburgh International Festival and Scottish Opera), After the End (Traverse Theatre), Way to Heaven (Royal Court), Tenderhooks (Canadian National Ballet), Platform (ICA), The Wonderful World of Dissocia (Lyceum Edinburgh and Tron Theatre Glasgow), The Allure of Distant Worlds (Fundaçâo Calouste Gulbenkian Lisbon and tour), Guantanamo Honor Bound to Defend Freedom (Tricycle Theatre, West End, New York and San Francisco), Track (Scottish Dance Theatre), The Dumber Waiter and Other Pieces (Oxford Playhouse and tour), Body of Poetry (Komische Opera Berlin), People Next Door (Traverse Theatre Edinburgh, Theatre Royal Stratford East and New York), Red Demon (Young Vic and tour of Japan), Bintou and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Arcola Theatre), Possibly Six (Grand Ballet de Canada/Theatre Maisonneuve Montreal), Eskimo Sisters (Southwark Playhouse),
Trained in Costume Design at Akademie für Kostüm Design in Hamburg and in Theatre Design at Central St Martins. She was overall winner of the 1999 Linbury Prize.
Projects for 2008 will include the Young Vic, Royal Court, Royal Opera House and a Didy Veldman Dance in Cedar Lake New York.
For the past twelve years, Yaron Abulafia has designed lighting for theatre and dance performances, installations, concerts and television shows internationally.
Now resident in The Netherlands, he is working towards a PhD at Rijks University of Groningen, The Netherlands. The research, which incorporates both theory and practice, deals with light in contemporary theatre and examines the poetics and meaning-making of light within the contemporary theatrical event. For one of his recent light designs in theatre (Peer Gynt, Romania, 2008) he has won the first prize of light design supported by PHILIPS.
He holds a Masters degree (MFA) in Scenography from the Frank Mohr Instituut in Groningen and BA in theatre studies (Design track) from Tel-Aviv University in Israel. His passion for light design developed after six years of painting and sculpture studies in Israel (also at Tel-Aviv museum for the arts); a visual influence which is often distinguished in the characteristics of his designs.