Welcoming Our New Co-Founders!

Welcome to our new Co-Founders, Asitha Tennekoon (left), and Marion Newman (right).

A lot has changed since Amplified Opera launched last October with our inaugural AMPLIFY concert series.

Perhaps we should rephrase that.

Everything has changed since we launched.

As we contemplate what comes next for our organization we have to acknowledge that we are facing a very different social-cultural-political-economic landscape than when we started on this journey. Like so many of you, we’ve taken some time to mourn what we’ve lost, and table some projects that we were really looking forward to sharing with the world – projects that we’re still excited to share with you once we can meet again in person.

And like many of you, we’ve also allowed ourselves to dream. What do we want the opera industry to look like beyond the COVID-19 pandemic? What can we do to help foster that world right now?

Today we are pleased to announce that we’ve added two new faces to our co-founding team: mezzo-soprano Marion Newman, and tenor Asitha Tennekoon. For the past two months, they have been hard at work helping our current team (stage director Aria Umezawa and multi-disciplinary creator-performer Teiya Kasahara) build the kind of organization we’ve always envisioned: an organization that empowers audiences to embrace diverse and challenging cultural experiences by placing equity-seeking artists at the center of public discourse.

In addition to their wealth of experience performing on stages across the country, Marion brings her perspective as a mixed Kwagiulth/Stò:lo, English/Irish/Scottish opera artist, and Asitha brings his background as a western classical singer who was born and raised in Sri Lanka. With their input, we know we can build an arts organization on a strong foundation of listening, learning, respect, and above all, love for this art form that has so much potential to move people.

You can expect that we will continue to change over the coming months. For one thing, you’re reading this on our brand new blog! You can subscribe to us for think pieces, updates, and announcements. It’s time to start having some of these conversations out loud.

These are the first of several projects we will be launching over the next few weeks. Keep your eyes peeled and drop us a line. We want to hear your thoughts on what we need to be amplifying!

Team Amplified <ffff