Opera has come a long way since its original inception—it seems more and more gets added to productions with each passing year. Kyong Mee Choi, an assistant professor of music composition at Roosevelt University’s College of Performing Arts, recently received a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship to work on a mini opera which will strive to add even more media and interactivity to the form. “This is going to be an accumulation of my music, language and philosophical backgrounds,” Choi says. “It’s a wonderful opportunity to combine electronic music with writing, and along with those also be able to add a visual aspect to it. I want this to be interactive and collaborative with the performers as well.” Choi will take a leave of absence from teaching her electro-acoustical music composition classes at Roosevelt in order to work on the opera from fall of 2009 to the spring of 2010. Choi says receiving the fellowship was unexpected. “It was a surprise,” she says. “The process was so long that I actually almost forgot that I applied for it.”
