Festival, Museum, Community Presentations (Invited)

“Between Selene and Luna: Operatic Incantations to the Moon”

Bowling Green State University Planetarium, The Moon Speaker Series, 3 April 2025

Music from the Western art tradition (what we commonly call “classical”) has often relied on moon imagery to express and enhance its auditory potential—take, for instance, Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, or Debussy’s Clair de lune. Predictably, the moon occupies a special place in opera: it has been a symbol of moonstruck lovers; the source and reference of women’s “lunacy”; and it has inspired a plethora of prayers, songs, and incantations for guidance, support, solace, and reconciliation.

In this multimedia presentation we will experience how the moon has been depicted by composers, librettists, singers and stage directors, who for centuries have waxed—and waned—poetic about that “divine goddess” of the firmament.

“Wagner’s Flying Dutchman”

Led a 3-hour seminar for a group of 12 participants, ahead of the performance of the new production of Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman at the Santa Fe Opera, directed by David Alden and conducted by Thomas Guggeis;

Santa Fe Opera, New Mexico, August 2023

“Hieratic Iconoclasm:

Liszt, Hanslick, and the Graner Festmesse”

Faculty Scholar Series, College of Musical Arts, Bowling Green State University; 5 October 2022

“Early Recording Technologies:

It’s Amazing What You Hear!”

Virtual lecture presented under “ElderCollege Courses Spring 2022” at BGSU-Firelands, Ohio; 8 April 2022

“Beethoven Open Forum:

Everything you wanted to know about Beethoven

but were afraid to ask!”

Open forum and discussion on Beethoven and his music,

in advance of the 2020 Beethoven String Quartet Marathon

at the Toledo Museum of Art, July 2020 [cancelled due to the pandemic]

“One hundred years after the passage

of the 19th Amendment”

Curated list of works written by women composers, and on-air

conversation with Brad Cresswell.

WGTE Public Media, Toledo’s NPR station, 6 July 2020.

“Adapting Shakespeare’s Macbeth to the

Operatic Stage”

On-air conversation about the genesis of Verdi's Macbeth, part of the Toledo Opera’s “Macbeth Day.” With Kevin Bylsma, hosted by Brad Cresswell, broadcast live on WGTE, Toledo's NPR station.

Sylvania Library, Ohio, 25 September 2019

“Of Holograms, Virtuosos, and Maria Callas”

Invited two-hour-long presentation on Maria Callas and the

Hologram Tour, for “Music 102: De-composed,” a series of

summer lectures offered by the Toledo Symphony Orchestra.

Toledo, 15 July 2019

“What did Wagner learn

about Greece from Nietzsche?”

Invited presentation at the Third International Festival of

Contemporary Greek Music, “Ancient Greece as Source of Inspiration.”

Chios, Greece, July 2019

“Of Holograms, Wolves and Ducks: Eclectic Soundscapes in Blade Runner 2049”

Faculty Scholars Series, College of Musical Arts, Bowling Green State University; 24 October 2018

"Three Women Composers of the

Nineteenth Century"

Invited two-hour-long presentation on Fanny Mendelssohn,

Clara Schumann and Alma Mahler for “Music 102: De-composed,”

a series of summer lectures offered by the Toledo Symphony

Orchestra.

Toledo, 9 July 2018

“The Pearl Fishers at the Toledo Opera: Behind the Scenes”

Short presentation and panel moderator on aspects of production of Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers.
Registry Bistro, Toledo, 10 October 2017

“When Music is Silent:

Listening to the Music of Ancient Greece

through its Pottery”

Lecture presented at the Toledo Museum of Art in conjunction with

the Museum’s exhibit

“The Berlin Painter: Athenian Pottery of the 5th Century BCE.”

Toledo Museum of Art, 16 September 2017

“Shakespeare in Love”

Guest presenter for Toledo Opera’s Tuesday Talks on Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette; with Matthew Wikander (University of Toledo), Sarah Jobin (TSO), and opera director Bernard Uzan. Registry Bistro, Toledo, 5 April 2016