Gail Simpson
Founder/Artistic Director
- Role
- Founder Artistic Director at Opera Frontier
- Location
- Oakland, CA, US
- LinkedIn followers
- 500 followers
About Gail Simpson
After decades of feeling like an imposter in each of the two spheres I inhabited — as PhD…
Experience
Founder Artistic Director
Jan 2007 — Present · San Francisco, CA, US
Opera Frontier is an award-winning Bay Area opera company that uses classical opera in innovative ways, blending it with such elements as dance, world music, circus arts, and contemporary beats. They aim to make opera accessible to both opera lovers and those who are new to the art form by using unexpected cultural elements and performing in unconventional spaces. Opera Frontier’s work often involves collaborators who embrace the possibilities of creating something new. Past collaborations have included:*Artists and Cooperating Venues - Bear Valley Music Festival, Del Sol String Quartet, Palace Hotel (San Francisco), Thalea String Quartet, National Theater (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia), Circus Abyssinia.*World Music Instrumentalists - Ali Paris (Qanun), Robbie Belgrade & Puran Sachary Grewal (Tabla), Michael Irvine (Sarod), Kaethe Hostetter (Violin), and Endris Hassan (Masinqo)*Choreographers - Sarah Bush, Amy LaFaille, Tom Segal, Urvashi Sinha, Jamie Ray Wright and Sherifa Zuhur.*Photographers/Visual Artists: Stanley Forman (“Victory at the Boston Marathon”, “Red Sox 70s” and his Pulitzer Prize winning image, “The Soiling of Old Glory”, StanleyFormanPhotos.com); Painter David C. Behrens (“Original Founding Fathers”, DavidBehrensGallery.com) and Photographer Tom Olin (Disability History Collections, University of Toledo, UToledo.edu)During the Covid lockdown, Opera Frontier pivoted from stage to screen, creating the short film \"Activist Aria: More Perfect Union\" from a home studio. It currently prioritizes projects that explore contemporary social issues, aiming to contribute to conversations about such things as homelessness, elder care, climate change, displacement/reparations and the democratic process.
Education
Stanford University
Bachelor's degree, Cultural Anthropology
University of California, Berkeley
Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
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