Sophia's Forest

Composer Lembit Beecher will create a multi-disciplinary chamber opera for soprano Kiera Duffy and the Aizuri String Quartet that focuses on the experience of childhood and will be performed at Drexel University's URBN Center Annex. Directed by Brian Staufenbiel with original libretto by Hannah Moscovitch, the work will feature a mechanical, electronic sound-generating sculpture that will grow from a small music box into a seven-foot tall object as the performance unfolds. Built in collaboration with architect Simon Kim, engineer Mark Yim, and Director of the Drexel ExCITe Center Youngmoo Kim, the sculpture will represent a family heirloom belonging to the principal character, an 11-year-old girl. Beecher says, "The opera will be structured as a series of conversations between the child and the sculpture, the child telling fantastical stories to the sculpture, and the sculpture responding with its delicately mechanical textures."