Biographies
Lucia Joyce | Biographies
Patrick Zimmerli | Composer
Patrick Zimmerli is a New York- and Paris- based composer. He writes a sophisticated yet approachable hybrid of contemporary classical and jazz music. Recent collaborators include Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Brooklyn Rider String Quartet, Ethan Iverson, Brian Blade, Luciana Souza, the Knights Orchestra and the Escher String Quartet. His music has been performed at Carnegie Hall and Town Hall in New York, Wigmore Hall in London, Salle Pleyel in Paris, Sala São Paolo in Brazil, the Vienna Konzerthaus Grosser Saal and the new SF Jazz Center. He has performed for both American and European audiences and has earned significant attention and praise from many shores. Musical excerpts: www.patrickzimmerli.com.
Mirabelle Ordinaire | Director, Dramaturg
Mirabelle Ordinaire is a French director, librettist and translator based in Paris and New York. She currently serves as Stage Director at the Metropolitan Opera in New York where she is, this season, the revival director of Puccini’s La Bohème. Following her residency at the Académie de l’Opéra de Paris in 2015-16 she directed Mozart’s Bastien et Bastienne (2017 & 2019), and conceived and directed the acclaimed Kurt Weill Story (2018) there. Other directing credits include La directrice de théâtre, based on Mozart’s Der Schauspieldirektor (Philharmonie de Paris, 2022), a chamber version of Poulenc’s Carmelites (Septembre Musical de l’Orne, 2022), Dai Fujikura’s The Goldbug (2020) and Rossini’s Il Signor Bruschino (2017), both with the Orchestre National d’Ile de France; Sondheim’s Marry Me A Little (Théâtre Marigny, 2019), and Offenbach's La Vie Parisienne Salle Gaveau (2015). She has translated a number of contemporary plays and opera librettos, and has written and staged several pedagogical concerts with ONDIF at the Paris Philharmonie. Ms. Ordinaire received a PhD in Theatre at Columbia University, and leads acting workshops around Shakespeare’s plays at the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris. She is the artistic director of the Compagnie Extra, through which she is developing several long-term opera and theatre projects.
Spencer Matheson | Librettist
Spencer Matheson is a novelist and poet. His short story “Glenn Gould Syndrome” was included in Conjunctions 66: “Affinity: The Friendship Issue,” edited by Bradford Morrow, and his poem “Remembrance Day” appears in the Fall 2021 Paris Review. An avid music fan, he writes about jazz for Music & Literature. Born in Calgary, raised in Vancouver, he now lives with his wife and three children in Paris, where he teaches at the École normale supérieure. His novel-in-progress is set in Paris, featuring a ten-year-old boy, half French and half American, on a search for clues to the mysterious disappearance of his mother.
Philippine Ordinaire | Set Design
Since completing her studies at St Martins College of Art in London, Philippine Ordinaire has collaborated on numerous theatre and opera projects in France and abroad, with, among others, Tobias Hoheisel, Chantal Thomas, Tim Hatley and Radu Boruzescu. She recently designed the exhibitions Molière en Costumes at the CNCS, Maria by Callas at the Seine Musicale, and the public spaces of the Grand Palais for a Singin’ in the Rain revival. She was the set designer for Tistou les pouces verts (directed by Gilles Rico, Opéra de Rouen), Funeral Blues (directed by Olivier Fredj, Bouffes du Nord), Marry me a Little (directed by Mirabelle Ordinaire, Studio Marigny), and with Laurent Delvert for the Nozze de Figaro (Opéra de Saint-Etienne), Traumgörge (Opéra national de Lorraine) and Gabriel (Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier).