A Note From Our Founder
Dear Friends,
I'm excited to share this wrap-up of Little Opera’s 4th season with you. It's been a year of growth and transition — our budget more than doubled in the last year, and despite some challenging moments as a company, we've been able to come away from this season stronger than ever.
One of our biggest transitions was bidding farewell to Music and Development Director Claire Shaw. Claire spent the last two years working to shape so much of what Little Opera has become — solidifying our music curriculum, applying for (and getting!) our first major grants, and setting up our administrative infrastructure to make it possible for us to grow. After working in the development department at the San Francisco Symphony, Claire has moved back to her hometown of London where she'll be continuing to do work in education. Though we miss her tremendously, we're excited to know she'll have the opportunity to do some opera creation abroad with her students in England.
Our second major transition was expanding the age range of our students, and opening a 3rd class at Little Opera for middle school students. We call them The Tchaikovskys. We began the season working with this small but dedicated group at the Center for New Music in the Tenderloin, with the intent to launch a collaboration with students in that neighborhood in addition to our existing students. As we quickly came to realize, partnerships aren't created overnight, and after transportation for our existing students became more and more of an issue, we moved the class back to West Portal, where they completed the season.
As we prepare to enter season 5, the foundation of what we're doing feels stronger than it's ever been. We've had the opportunity to move into our very own office space (in the newly developed arts complex at Pacific Felt Factory), and more and more of the teaching team is starting to take on expanded roles in the company: Eva Langman has jumped in to become our de-facto grants manager, and Ariana Strahl has stayed onboard as events manager, working from Ann Arbor, Michigan where she moved this summer.
At our first ever staff retreat in July, the entire teaching team ventured out of the city for a weekend camping trip together at Portola Redwoods State Park. We spent three days together dreaming, scheming, planning, getting ready for the upcoming season, and imagining what Little Opera could look like ten years from now. I came away from the weekend with a renewed sense of gratitude for everyone who has helped us arrive at this eve of our 5th season: our students, our families, our teachers, our artists, and every single one of our fans.
Thank you for being with us on this ride,
Erin Bregman
Little Opera Founder and Director
I'm excited to share this wrap-up of Little Opera’s 4th season with you. It's been a year of growth and transition — our budget more than doubled in the last year, and despite some challenging moments as a company, we've been able to come away from this season stronger than ever.
One of our biggest transitions was bidding farewell to Music and Development Director Claire Shaw. Claire spent the last two years working to shape so much of what Little Opera has become — solidifying our music curriculum, applying for (and getting!) our first major grants, and setting up our administrative infrastructure to make it possible for us to grow. After working in the development department at the San Francisco Symphony, Claire has moved back to her hometown of London where she'll be continuing to do work in education. Though we miss her tremendously, we're excited to know she'll have the opportunity to do some opera creation abroad with her students in England.
Our second major transition was expanding the age range of our students, and opening a 3rd class at Little Opera for middle school students. We call them The Tchaikovskys. We began the season working with this small but dedicated group at the Center for New Music in the Tenderloin, with the intent to launch a collaboration with students in that neighborhood in addition to our existing students. As we quickly came to realize, partnerships aren't created overnight, and after transportation for our existing students became more and more of an issue, we moved the class back to West Portal, where they completed the season.
As we prepare to enter season 5, the foundation of what we're doing feels stronger than it's ever been. We've had the opportunity to move into our very own office space (in the newly developed arts complex at Pacific Felt Factory), and more and more of the teaching team is starting to take on expanded roles in the company: Eva Langman has jumped in to become our de-facto grants manager, and Ariana Strahl has stayed onboard as events manager, working from Ann Arbor, Michigan where she moved this summer.
At our first ever staff retreat in July, the entire teaching team ventured out of the city for a weekend camping trip together at Portola Redwoods State Park. We spent three days together dreaming, scheming, planning, getting ready for the upcoming season, and imagining what Little Opera could look like ten years from now. I came away from the weekend with a renewed sense of gratitude for everyone who has helped us arrive at this eve of our 5th season: our students, our families, our teachers, our artists, and every single one of our fans.
Thank you for being with us on this ride,
Erin Bregman
Little Opera Founder and Director