alexander
gedeon
alexander
gedeon
gedeon
I am a deviser and director of new opera born and based in los angeles.
I came to the idea of directing opera after studying experimental theater in college & playing in nightclubs as a musician for more than a decade. Gradually I saw that opera was the synthesis of everything I loved: composing stage pictures, complex music, projects epic in scope & scale.
An bizarre dream of performing Ionesco in a jewel box theater indirectly led me to devising new opera and concert-theater works with extraordinary composers, librettists and designers across the country.
the latest
--+ Everything Rises, my collaboration with Jennifer Koh, Davóne Tines and Ken Ueno, at BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) was a New York Times Critics’ Pick.
--+ Last fall, I spent a month in Knoxville at the Longhaven Artist Residency with choreographer Daeun Jung & composer Daniel Corral, devising a dance opera to be produced by Los Angeles Performance Practice.
--+ This month, i associate-direct Proximity at Lyric Opera of Chicago, with libretto by Anna Deavere Smith, music by Daniel Bernard-Roumain, Caroline Shaw & John Luther Adams; directed by Yuval Sharon.
opera | concert theater
The Double
Everything Rises
Sanctuaries
Concerto for Having Fun with Elvis on Stage
La tragèdie de Carmen
Everything Rises
Sanctuaries
Concerto for Having Fun with Elvis on Stage
La tragèdie de Carmen
popular music
Before pivoting to opera, I worked as the songwriter, choreographer, guitarist & lead singer of Brooklyn-based punk-funk band Trick and the Heartstrings, & LA disco ensemble Yellow Alex. I collaborated with Grammy winning producer Paul Epworth (Adele, Florence + the Machine) & had song placements in indie films, ABC TV and the iTunes worldwide playlist. My last record, House of Discipline, received over a year of airplay on LA’s KCRW.
prisoner of fashion / house of discipline
body & voice
I sometimes perform in my own & other folks’ work as a guitarist, singer, reciter & pantomime. As a bandleader, I frequently choreograph movement for musicians.
+
art does not organize parties, nor is it the servant or colleague of power. rather, the work of art becomes a political force simply through the faithful representation of the spirit. it is a political act to create an image of the self or of the collective.
[lewis hyde]