OI Insights | Why Santa Fe Opera’s New Hire is Seismically Good News

(Santa Fe, NM) - On February 12th, The Santa Fe Opera announced that it had hired The Dallas Opera’s David Lomelí as its new Chief Artistic Officer, consolidating the roles previously held by Artistic Director Alexander Neef (now leading Opéra de Paris) and Director of Artistic Administration Brad Woolbright, who retired in December 2020.

Santa Fe Opera Appoints Chief Artistic Officer

By Mark Tiarks for The New Mexican (13FEB2021)

Read The New Mexican Story

Lomelí’s years of artistic and artistic administration success, which includes a robust, globally-recognized singing career and the founding and exponential growth of The Dallas Opera’s wildly successful, YouTube-based TDO Network (boasting 28 weekly shows and 90 million views) is complimented by international marketing and computer science engineering degrees from Spain and Mexico, respectively. A seismic new hire, in our opinion. Lomelí, a quadruple threat rarely seen in opera, arrives in Santa Fe at a pivotal and eventful moment in the company’s history.

Santa Fe is a unique house with a unique story. A summer festival that functions more like a full-season, A-level house, we branded Santa Fe as the Davos-Sundance of Opera, based upon where it sits, literally and figuratively, in the global opera universe. For most opera companies and professionals, 2020 was a shared annus horribilis. But, Santa Fe punched well above its weight, pivoting to a hybrid, digital summer apprentices program, as well as the Songs from The Santa Fe Opera series, which celebrated 2020’s five (5), originally scheduled operas from its high desert stage with remote performances and interviews from around the world, notably before Metropolitan' Opera’s Met Stars Live debuted.

In the fall, stunning Opera For All Voices programming arrived. “Is This America,” a film showcasing Chandler Carter and Diana Solomon-Glover’s “This Little Light of Mine,” a one-act opera portraying key events in the life of voting rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, screened in partnership with CCA Santa Fe just before the November election. In February, OFAV’s Key Change, one of the country’s best podcasts, began its third season exploring the development of new OFAV works while keeping a finger on the pulse of social justice, immigration and the state of our union (more on this breakthrough podcast soon).

With an eye to the coming summer season, General Director Robert K. Meya shared that Santa Fe Opera is heavily invested in a COVID-safe 2021 season, having created a new position - COVID Compliance and Safety Officer - to manage new protocols developed with CHRISTUS St. Vincent, partnering with Production Safe Zone “to conduct testing and help maintain performer and worker social distancing protocols.”

Santa Fe Opera is effectively in the process of creating the world premiere of a proprietary, safety-first opera brand experience - a thrilling business, health, science, performing arts and human interest story like no other, and just in time for Mr. Lomelí’s arrival. We’ve no inside information on Mr. Lomelí’s full Chief Artistic Officer responsibilities or his specific plans, but OI Insights would like to the first to highlight some clear, additional business wins. Full disclosure: we’ve not yet had the opportunity to formally meet Mr. Lomelí and these thoughts are based upon publicly available information.

Optics

I’m hard pressed to think of another US-based, Latinx person at Mr. Lomelí’s level of artistry, artistic leadership and experience in the business of opera (this Mexican-American cheered when he heard the news). Santa Fe Opera is an increasingly diverse place to work, especially when fully staffed during the season, but leadership positions haven’t always been as representative of multicultural New Mexico. Given this, Mr. Lomelí’s arrival is right on time; he will not only build upon his success at The Dallas Opera and abroad, but bring critical diversity insights and best practices with him. Per Opera News:

“His tenure at The Dallas Opera marked the first time in the history of an American opera company that a Latino has held a top position at a Level 1 opera company. Lomelí serves as a Strategic Committee Member with OPERA America’s ALAANA (African, Latinx, Arab, Asian and Native American) Steering Committee and is committed to enhancing opera and the opera industry through increased diversity and equitable practices.”

- Opera News, February 12, 2021

Mr. Lomelí’s standing in the industry as a Latinx person, coupled with the aforementioned OPERA America service, it would not be a stretch to say that he could be Santa Fe Opera’s de facto Chief Diversity Officer. At the very least, he will be able to provide fellow members of Santa Fe leadership, his Human Resources colleagues (as well as board members and staff) with on point guidance, based upon his experience with these best practices in the opera space, which every American company worth its salt must actively engage, embrace and grow.

Expertise

As detailed in various articles written about Mr. Lomelí’s impending arrival, he brings a diversified portfolio of experience, credentials and business success to the table. But no two companies are the same and Santa Fe Opera presents unique opportunities.

Over the course of his career, Lomelí appears to have taken calculated risks and forged new paths. Based upon his use of TDO social media, he’s effectively become one of its most recognized faces, and his clear understanding of public relations - his use of personal PR as well as a publicist - demonstrates the importance he places on telling a compelling, real-time story not only for himself but for his brand. Applying this to TDO Network’s raison d’être, the initiative was born due to a lack of substantial TDO video archives and a reluctance to begin creating expensive digital opera. Given these realities, Lomelí and his team ideated and executed a programming vision that not only employs talented creatives, many of whom are out of work opera singers, but also creates real-time space and conversation around some of opera and American culture’s hot button topics - equity, inequality and race - during one of our nation’s most hot button times (cue the OFAV Key Change synergies).

Shockingly, there are only a few other regularly-seen ‘face of the brand’ individuals in opera. Some who come to mind are San Francisco Opera’s Matthew Shilvock, Fort Worth Opera’s Afton Battle, Glimmerglass Festival’s Francesca Zambello and a certain gent in New York City. As General Director, Mr. Meya appeared throughout 2020’s digital programming and is regularly identified as Santa Fe Opera’s chief executive. However, given Mr. Lomelí’s regular #FOTB appearances across the TDO Network and his deft use of social media and public relations for himself and his brand, SFO is almost certainly considering how to harness the success of this opera world influencer, recreating and growing the global digital success first born in Dallas .

Even with high-dollar investments in a COVID-safe SFO brand experience this summer, there’s every reason for the company to also invest in its digital capabilities now that the pandemic has forever changed how we consume - and accept - alternatives to live performance. Leveraging Lomelí’s global network, SFO could digitally introduce itself into new homes, regions and spheres of influence (i.e. global business), elevating itself to the worldwide omnimedia prominence and resonance it deserves, while still remaining place-based and fully associated with The City Different. If, of course, Santa Fe Opera wants this, as we stated in our 2019 blog. The results could be on par with TDO Network and Met Opera, making Santa Fe Opera a Top Five, globally-recognized opera brand with the ability to monetize its prominence (today’s Scott Galloway-esque prediction). We’re hoping SFO is audacious enough to consider and make it a reality.

Vision

Continuing in the spirit of the last section and based upon his reported global consulting, Mr. Lomelí undoubtedly sees the world as his operating environment, not just New Mexico, the Southwest or even the United States. Santa Fe Opera has been steadily building its working relationships with Europe since Mr. Meya became General Director, which has been exciting to watch and critical to the growth of SFO’s global footprint. In addition to key European relationships, Mr. Lomelí’s ready access to and standing in the Spanish-speaking opera, business and cultural worlds means that Santa Fe Opera could become The Americas’ most influential opera company. A thought: Monocle Magazine’s annual soft-power issue ranks “how well countries project themselves abroad.” In the same way, with a bilingual digital network, Santa Fe Opera could create indelible velocity of message, projecting its own brand of soft, multi-cultural power around the world, but specifically across North and Latin America, becoming a unifying force for American opera and, more critically, Opera in the Americas. Our recent, frank assessment of this country’s flagship opera company makes this a strategic objective worth considering and most certainly a goal that’s within reach. If I was formally advising the company, this would be the hill I’d jump up and down upon.

Mr. Lomeli from a recent ABC News article, speaking to opera generally and The Dallas Opera Network:

"It's a business that doesn't have a lot of clues on how to do this," Lomeli said. "We debunk myths, and a lot of people who are following us are around the globe…singers or people who are just starting (to watch)."

Mr. Lomeli probably recognizes that the opera world is watching and studying his particular approach to opera innovation (as they should), while he continues to write the book on building a dominant, glocal brand, perhaps even beyond opera-world recognition. As suggested above, the bilingual or multi-lingual expansion and exportation of Santa Fe Opera’s one of a kind ethos, with emphasis on multi-cultural New Mexico, could power connection through bold performance, pop up experiences, brand partnerships and omnimedia, scaling the brand to new and dizzying heights.

A clue: how do national tourism efforts work in the global travel market?

JM for OI Insights

Stagetime Aims To Level Opera's Playing Field

Mobile and full-screen renderings for soprano Alexandra Smither’s Stagetime domain. Photo: Jennie Moser

(Santa Fe, NM) - In August, I came across an opera-singing friend on Instagram who was lauding a new platform called Stagetime, which she was proudly beta-testing prior to its public launch. Directed at opera singers, companies, agents and management firms, my initial assessment was a beautifully designed business ecosphere for opera industry individuals and entities (it’s actually more, but hold that thought). I also knew of Stagetime’s founder Jennie Moser and her graphic and website design achievements across opera. It took us a little while to connect, but when we did so last month, our chat was a delight. As hoped, Jennie was open to sharing her experience as the female founder of a VC-funded startup in the opera space. If contemplating your own startup or already on the entrepreneurial path, read on for insights and takeaways from an opera innovator forging her own path. JM

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By Jennie Moser

My year at the intersection of tech startups and classical music has been exciting and strange. When I looked around for other female founders in the art, technology, and venture capital space, my pool of peers was pretty much nonexistent, which meant that the frame of reference when I walked into a room to pitch lent me no support. No investor looks at me and thinks, “ah yes, we saw an excellent financial return last time we invested in a young woman with a background and market of classical music. This pitch is going to be great.” Don’t get me wrong — they don’t want me to fail either, but imagine giving someone your grocery list and then realizing that they don’t even know what a grocery store is. I have about 30 seconds to make sure that instead of an ill-informed tech wannabe with music degrees and subpar Excel skills, I come across as an articulate, multi-disciplinary professional whose diverse background makes my case stronger, not weaker. 

My case - the case for Stagetime - was not born on a white-board in an MBA classroom. It came through the repetition of helping artists and arts organizations become digital by building their websites (which I’ve now done 126 times), a process that takes me and my team around 100 hours and costs our clients thousands of dollars, while the rest of the world has long been connected via LinkedIn at a nominal cost.

When we place the burden of large-scale digital problem solving on individual artists and regional arts organizations, we set the financial barrier to entry damningly high. When we cut artists and the arts out of the conversation about technology and data, a disservice is done to everyone. 

Innovation is creative at its core, and I know that my tech and entrepreneurial colleagues would only benefit from having creative minds contributing to the future of the technology that is shaping reality before our eyes. Similarly, I see firsthand how my artist colleagues have more time to hone and distribute their craft when technology has the ability to make administrative tasks quicker and easier. Automation and digitization are not the enemy here — they free up invaluable resources, time, and labor, so that the arts can focus on, well, the arts.

When the arts are reliant upon manual, in-person processes to build bridges from the arts to the rest of the world, and vice versa, we create an insular vacuum. Our primary task is to find a digital home that shows us at our professional best as individuals, so that we can spend more of our time leveraging that technology to establish professional relationships that become symbiotically beneficial — first within our own industry, but ultimately, with the rest of the digital, professional world, which determines the technology and consumer-driven products that increasingly shape our global future.

So, how do creatives join the conversation?

“Siri, what is ‘venture capital?’”

“Alexa, what is 0.67% of 1.5 million?”

“Google, can you teach me how to sing?”

One of these questions is not like the other. In a world where data is queen, I felt alienated walking into meetings heavy on tech lexicon and MBA slang. I’ve watched the Khan Academy videos on venture capital a truly embarrassing number of times, I’ve had to text advisors at 11pm to ask how a pitch deck is different from a super fancy powerpoint presentation (spoiler alert: it’s not), and my social media confidence plummets when I realize I should share a recent pitch competition win on LinkedIn because, well, I don’t really know how to use LinkedIn.

If we’ve been on a Zoom call in the past year, you can pretty much guarantee my right hand was out of frame writing down words I’d need to look up later. “They didn’t teach us this in music school,” I say, followed by a smile. This happens more than I’d like, but it tends to remind people that I’m not ill-prepared or naive — I’m just hyper-trained in something totally different.

More importantly, all of those things I just mentioned are attainable via Google, textbook, calculator, or Khan Academy video. Numbers and jargon are automatable, replicable, search engine optimize-able. The way that I learned to sing isn’t. The creative side of my brain can’t be replaced by Google. 

Securing venture capital is tricky enough and my particular profile as a female classical musician made my job even harder. After our first meeting, one investor texted a mutual colleague “I think the opera girl might be onto something.” I had to find ways to go from “opera girl” to “potential colleague,” so I spent a lot of time figuring out how to equate our experiences (we can talk about the 'girl' part of this in another article).

The first few months of my path to investment were spent endlessly explaining the music industry and gig economy to people who were “familiar” with something called “the arts.” In this context, I’ll define “the arts” as the subconscious action of reducing creative-driven careers that don’t fit a typical corporate structure into a lump sum commodity containing vague job titles, zany creatives, big personalities, and bohemians waiting to be “discovered”. I maintain that if you go to music school to become mainstream famous, you should perhaps try another line of work.

“I remind the venture capitalists in the room that although I have degrees from the same institutions as they do, my career has never appeared in their LinkedIn feed. ”

Photo: FAYMOUS Studios / Fay Fox

My job was to become really good at painting a different picture for investors. My business pitch was mostly centered around my ability to provide context and draw parallels to the professional experiences of the investors in the room. “The arts” started to take the shape of opera and ballet companies with administrative and production staff. They had roles, titles, and pedigree just as structured as that of the investors in the room. It shifted from nameless singer/songwriters and piano lessons for their kids to a realization that, yes, there are indeed buildings where Chief Financial Officers and principal violinists do their work under the same roof, for the same organization. They were surprised to learn that a set designer was not a high school woodshop fanatic who jumped into the professional trade at 18, but someone with an MFA in Set Design from Yale.

That’s when the fun part starts. I remind the venture capitalists in the room that although I have degrees from the same institutions as they do, my career has never appeared in their LinkedIn feed. I remind them that although we’ve been discussing my pedigree and career for the better part of the hour, they still don’t know what I sound like - and how would they be able to glean that from my LinkedIn? Sure, I have a website, but how would they ever come across me in a professional context? They aren’t going home and stumbling across my website after some late night just-for-fun pre-professional opera singer Googling, I can promise you that. Pain points become apparent, and I go from “opera girl” to “colleague” with education and experience in an industry that is different than theirs, but that still has value.

www.stagetimearts.com

Our investments thus far have come from Elevate Ventures and the IU Angel Network who, once they had relatable insight into the arts industry, saw the value in investing in the arts via Stagetime. I win pitch competitions because Stagetime meets the requirements for technology, business model, market size, and financial projections, sure, but it’s also just...fun, and it looks good. The arts excite people. Whether it’s through their home city opera house or their favorite Netflix show, every one of my investors has a relationship to the product. Once they realize that, they start to feel an attachment to Stagetime, an emotional investment — and they like that. More than the capital, I’m excited that Stagetime has the resource of these investors’ experience in building viable, successful technology products. These are insights that are invaluable to the performing arts ecosystem, as the digital world is one where we have some undeniable catching up to do.

The best part about my job is that I don’t have to choose between the structure that makes a business successful and the subjective elements like attractive design and beautiful media — Stagetime is viable because both of those seemingly dichotomous things strengthen the product from opposite ends of the spectrum. I wouldn’t give up my music degrees or my financial models for anything. In fact, I’m really proud to have both sitting on my desk right now.

Learn more about Stagetime on Instagram and LinkedIn.

Visit stagetimearts.com

Finding Our Frosting: Frisson Films' Visual Brand Identity Process

By Elyse A. Kakacek and Ryan Rivard

(New York, NY) - Classical music is facing some considerable growing pains during these unexpected times. Of course, there’s no shortage of things to mourn, but at Frisson Films we are determined to move towards a brighter future. 

Frisson Films is a non-profit organization that is focused on the filmed expression of classical music. But more than that, we want to be an agent of change in the way we represent classical music through more modern avenues, bucking classical’s more traditional norms.

Our industry has been shackled to racist, socioeconomic, and sexist inequalities for its entire existence. The pandemic and Black Lives Matter movement have brought our brokenness into sharp focus, accelerating change, which could redefine classical music for the first time in a long time.

With performance spaces shuttered, classical musicians have a rare opportunity to pause, leave dead weight behind and realign our passion for the art form.

At Frisson Films, we see the evolution of classical music through film, as well as other, new and unexpected mediums. For us, it’s the tailor-made film score inside every waking moment - our heart strings play, feelings externalize, cells vibrate. If you haven't heard the word before, “frisson”, the French word for “shiver,” is the scientific term for a physical response to being moved by sound or sight. We live for these musical chills, more commonly known as goosebumps.

Our goal was to capture and translate these core beliefs and intentions into Frisson’s visual brand identity.

A dear mentor and voice teacher used to say “you need something to put the frosting on.”  I took this to mean that no amount of glitz, glamour or "hype" could ever replace the essence of music, expressed effectively, and what it does for and to people. In the same way, no amount of  branding would matter if Frisson wasn’t already the amazing double chocolate fudge layer cake and company of our dreams. Let’s start our discussion here…

Loving our cake

When filmmaker Ryan Rivard and I founded Frisson Films in New York City, our goal was to incite the discovery of classical music by expressing it visually, through film. Collaborating with artists of all disciplines and genres, we empower classical musicians to express themselves without preconceived ideas of how classical music should be expressed - we don’t believe in boxes.

Once a year, we screen Frisson’s projects for live audiences at a Greenpoint, Brooklyn warehouse. Over the last two years, we’ve released multiple mixed-media short films: L’Eraclito Amoroso (2018), Behold the Archer’s Skill (2019) and Don’t you weep when I am gone (2020), the latter being our most recent film and favorite project to date. Don’t you weep when I am gone features acclaimed baritone Will Liverman’s performance and personal arrangement of the traditional African American spiritual. Liverman was most recently heard as Papageno in The Magic Flute at the Metropolitan Opera, we were so honored to have him on our screen. Thus far, our films have inspired many viewers to continue exploring classical music, key to our ROI, and two films screened in the UK, at the Everyday Arias and The Beeston Film Festival (2019/2020).  Frisson's use of film has also inspired other artists to embark on similar explorations. Along the way, we’ve cultivated a community of musicians, filmmakers, and artists all willing to experiment, which has become as important as creating our own, one-of-a-kind films. 

Finding our frosting

As Ryan and I became more aware of our unique positioning, it became clear that we needed to find the aforementioned frosting for our cake — to visually represent, with integrity, the essence and ethos of Frisson as described up to this point, while still resonating with our artists and audiences.

One of the first creatives to enter our consideration was designer Joe Bradford. Based in Providence, Rhode Island, Joe is a Design Manager for Hasbro Games.  Ryan and Joe had long-standing artistic respect for one another, so we knew we were in good hands when we asked him to come onboard.

In addition to designing our visual brand identity, Joe contributed other elements like the poster design for L'Eraclito Amoroso. The film marked Frisson Film’s UK and European debut in October 2019, screening in partnership with Everyday Arias at London’s Closeup Film Center and Nottingham’s Beeston Film Festival.

We began by sending Joe three things: a spec sheet referencing simple and striking designs, the definition of frisson and a photo of hairs standing on end. Then we dove headfirst into all the details. The three of us agreed that one of classical music’s biggest barriers to entry is its traditional aesthetic.  “As someone who didn't grow up with the genre, it often felt stuffy, exclusive, or out of reach,” Joe said. “I'm excited by the ideas of approachability and inclusion…Frisson Films' efforts to break the mold with a modern, inclusive aesthetic that enables people to discover a genre they might not have otherwise."  

We asked him to share some insight on his design process: “I began the Frisson logo design process with a round of digital exploration creating logo concepts with perfectly set typefaces, moving around vector anchor points with mouse and keyboard, adding filters and noise with the intention of simulating the look of goosebumps.” Unfortunately, it didn’t go as planned. “When reviewing the work a few days later, it felt cold, overthought and disconnected from the idea of classical music.”

We returned to the drawing board and settled on a revised goal for Frisson’s visual identity. After this conversation, Joe realized that the logo needed to be produced by hand.

Per Joe: “The goal for the Frisson Films visual identity was (for it) to resonate honesty and fervor, much like the creation and performance of classical music itself. It needed to be a statement of creative passion, perfect with imperfections. And so with this clearer vision of what the logo was trying to embody, I went to work on how to communicate that through the medium of pencil on paper."

When Joe sent over a gallery of possible logos, the choice was immediately obvious for us. “The choice of cursive was chosen as a signifier for speed and excitement, (bringing) to mind a vision of someone pouring out over sheet music, frantically making marks, the music in their head playing faster than the pencil can move across the sheet of paper.” It was honest, passionate, simple and resonated deeply. And yes, it gave us the requisite goosebumps!

Joe also shared that “the lines which ground the logo serve as an abstract motif of a music staff, and reinforce the idea that Frisson is lifting or rising.” We couldn’t agree more. When Frisson audiences, artists and fans see our logo, we hope this sense of movement transmits, but we also hope they hear a crescendo, or perhaps a bow quickly sweeping across violin strings. Allegro?!

The final product. Visual brand design by Joe Bradford.

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Experience our films (without paywall) via links above or here. Follow us on Instagram to stay updated on new projects releasing in the coming months, including a fully animated short film by Joe Bradford, set to a commissioned acapella piece for voices by New York composer Nathaniel Adams. We also have a special quarantine project to announce soon, and we’ve begun working on the planning stages of a filmed, full-length new opera by composer Dan Felsenfeld and librettist Bea Goodwin. 

If you’re moved and able, please consider a donation to help us fulfill our mission of inciting curiosity for classical music, film and the multitude of ways it is visually expressed. 

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Elyse Anne Kakacek is a Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director at Frisson Films. An American soprano living and working in New York City,  “Kakacek sets her smoldering lyricism into flame” (OperaWire) with her solo album Untethered, available on Spotify, iTunes and Amazon. Follow Elyse on Instagram at @frissonfilmsorg and @furelysek545.

Filmmaker Ryan Rivard is a Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director at Frisson Films. Based in Queens, Ryan is a Producer at Reel Works, a non-profit that mentors and trains New York City youth in filmmaking. Follow Ryan on Instagram at @ryanrivard.

Joe Bradford is a multidisciplinary designer and musician based in Providence, Rhode Island. Joe is currently a Design Manager for Hasbro Games where he has helped make your favorite board games for nearly a decade. Follow Joe on Instagram at @joebradford.