The Book
A debut, full-length poetry collection
Viable is memoir in verse. The book follows a mother through a miscarriage, difficult pregnancy, and postpartum depression.
The poems lean on Italian and English grammar and vocabulary, recipes and the natural world. Grief and physical pain follow the mother through the pregnancy, Caesarean section, recovery and early parenthood. She learns to navigate her new body and emotions as well as the growing relationship with her child."
Chloe Yelena Miller
WHAT PEOPLE SAY
In Viable, Miller has crafted a measured, nuanced and poignant reading experience, using the eccentricities of English & Italian grammar to interrogate and express her journey through miscarriage to “a human / displacing yesterday’s empty space.” As she moves from incomprehensible loss to cautious joy to debilitating anxiety, setting “muscular infinitives” alongside the tenuousness of the subjunctive, we feel how language does its aching work.
— Ellen Doré Watson, author of pray me stay eager
Lauren Spavelko
The Music
Baby Book is an award-winning song cycle on miscarriage, pregnancy, and motherhood.
Our Performers
We invite you to learn more about our wonderful performers and their collaborations, projects, and initiatives. Please click any of the buttons below to see what they're working on now!
Soprano Jennifer Sgroe began her musical career in dance and musical theater before transitioning to opera. Sgroe is an active recitalist, having collaborated with pianists Cliff Jackson, James Busby, Nan McSwain and Beverly Soll. Recent recital programs have included a survey of 20th Century American opera arias, an introduction to the art of the song recital, and a program which investigates the connection between the human spirit and the natural world through song, poetry and photography.
She has begun the PROJECT 2020 Women Composer Commission Initiative is a multi-phase initiative which will commission classical art song from 21st C. women composers in an effort to develop the art song genre and secure a place in repertoire for women composers ‘voices’ from across all backgrounds.
II. Children's Pool Game
Mitsuko Morikawa
Pianist Mitsuko Morikawa has been an active soloist, coach accompanist and chamber musician in United States as well as in Asia. She has collaborated with highly acclaimed musicians from a wide variety of genres spanning instrumental music, opera, musical theater and choral ensembles. She currently works at the California State University Los Angeles, Colburn School, UCLA and Los Angeles Children’s Chorus.
IV. Great Aunt Dora
Natasha Lynn Foley
Natasha Lynn Foley is a soprano hailing from Anoka, MN. She earned her M.M. in Vocal Performance at the University of Louisville as an Opera Fellow with Kentucky Opera. She has studied under Edith Tidwell and Kenneth W. Bozemann.
Natasha collaborated with Lauren Spavelko on the Baby Book song cycle while they studied together in Louisville. She premiered three of the songs on her graduate recital in 2017, and sang "Great Aunt Dora" in a reading with the UofL Symphony Orchestra under Kimcherie Lloyd.
Kimcherie Lloyd
Kimcherie Lloyd is an Associate Professor, Director of Orchestral Studies, and Music Director of Opera Theater at the University of Louisville. She is interested in the historical perspective of women in classical music with a focus on leadership and conducting.
V. Looking Out
Lucie Chartin
Lucie is a French soprano in Amsterdam. Recent roles include Morgana (Alcina), Madeline (Opera Melancholica) Cleoptra (Giulio Cesare), L'Amour (Orphée et Eurydice), and Ophélie (Hamlet). She recently recorded "Back to Bach" with Collectif Trytone, which blends baroque, classical, and jazz music.
Luba Podgayskaya
Luba is a Russian pianist and harpsichordist in Amsterdam. She currently works with many opera companies and projects, including Opera2Day, National Opera & Ballet, Hojotoho Operastudio, McCray Operastudio, The Royal Conservatoire Den Haag. She is also often invited to accompany auditions & masterclasses.
VI. Searching
Julia Carey
Julia Carey is a pianist and composer in Boston. She was one of the first students admitted to the Harvard-New England Conservatory joint degree program, through which she received a master’s degree in composition. She received a second master’s degree in collaborative piano from Boston University.
Julia is the Minister of Music at the Central Square Congregational Church in Bridgewater, where she leads the adult and children’s choirs from the keyboard. She is one of the accompanists for the Tanglewood Festival Chorus and the Boston Symphony Children’s Choir. She also serves as the accompanist for the Metropolitan Chorale, the Dedham Choral Society, the Boston College University Chorale, and the Boston Saengerfest Men’s Chorus. She has served as a music director or accompanist for over forty opera and musical theater productions.
As a composer, her orchestral works have been performed by numerous orchestras, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Pops, and her works have been broadcast on national TV and radio in the United States and in Russia. She was the youngest composer ever published by the Theodore Presser Company. She was also chosen to arrange a folk song for Yo-Yo Ma and Lynn Chang to play at Deval Patrick’s inaugural ball.
Julia currently works as a musicianship teacher at the Suzuki School in Newton. She also taught an undergraduate music theory class at Boston College, served as a keyboard harmony teaching fellow at NEC, and worked as a musical theatre teacher at the Belvoir Terrace Arts Camp and the Boston Children’s Theatre.
