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For the best experience we recommend viewing this video horizontally and listening with headphones.

“Our Mother,” written for two mezzo-sopranos, is an ode to Lake Michigan. Chicago’s relationship with the lake is complex; it nurtures us, feeds us, guards us, and threatens us all at once. This piece captures that complexity by evoking a living body of water through overlapping vocal lines.

Cast

Grace Coberly

Composer, Librettist

Grace Coberly

Composer, Librettist

Grace Coberly is a queer composer and conductor with a passion for vocal music. Above all, they seek to create music that is accessible to audiences of any background. Their work has been performed across Europe and the American Midwest, including a recent world premiere in Milan.

Grace is currently completing their undergraduate studies in music and linguistics at Haverford College, where they have studied under Curt Cacioppo and Ingrid Arauco; they are also a member of the Bi-College Chamber Singers. They spent the fall of 2019 in Milan studying composition, conducting, and vocal performance with faculty members from Civica Scuola di Musica Claudio Abbado, as well as singing with professional ensembles Glass Armonico and Canticum Novum. During the summer of 2020, they attended Temple University’s remote Young Women Composer’s Camp and two virtual choral conducting courses through the Eastman School of Music. A runner-up in the 2020 Women’s Sacred Music Project Commission Competition, they are pursuing a career in music education and plan to earn a master’s degree after graduating from Haverford in 2021.

Eunice Ayodele

Mezzo Soprano

Eunice Ayodele

Mezzo Soprano

Mezzo-Soprano Eunice Ayodele received her M.M in Vocal Performance from Bowling Green State University where she studied under Myra Merritt and her B.A. from Aurora University. With over a decade of experience in performance, she is at home in a range of styles, including opera, musical theatre, jazz, rock, R&B, and blues. In addition to performance, Eunice has been teaching voice and piano for several years now. She believes music training should take place in a setting in which the student can learn about them self and about their music ability. In her teaching, Ms. Ayodele guides her students to discover their unique sound, technique, and theory through a variety of exercises and musical styles. By the end of a student’s time with her, she hopes they not only discover what their unique sound is, but also who they are as a musician and a person.

Ms. Ayodele is an active soloist and has recently finished work with the Toledo Opera Chorus. Some of her operatic roles include: Ino in Semele, Kathrine from L’ivrogne corrigé, Carmen from Carmen, and Dido from Dido and Aeneas. Her musical theatre roles include: Motormouth Mabel from Hairspray, Matron Mama Morton from Chicago, and The Witch from Into the Woods.

Bridget Skaggs

Mezzo Soprano

Bridget Skaggs

Mezzo Soprano

Mezzo-soprano Bridget Skaggs has swiftly gained the attention of Chicago audiences as “a compelling force” with an “agile, expressive voice” (Chicago Classical Review) equally at home in opera, art song, and oratorio.  Critics have noted the way she “lights up the scene” (Chicago Reader) in performances with Chicago Fringe Opera, where she debuted the role of Austin in the world-premiere production of Rossa Crean’s The Great God Pan in 2018, and sang Christopher Cerrone’s Naomi Songs with “warm and plaintive mezzo” (Chicago Classical Review) as part of Love Wounds, a multi-disciplinary exploration of the composer’s works, in 2019.

Bridget is increasingly recognized for her excellence in the musical and movement styles of Baroque repertoire, having performed Giunone in Cavalli’s La Didone with Haymarket Summer Opera Program in 2018, Bradamante in Handel’s Alcina with Chicago Vocal Arts Consortium in 2019, and performed numerous Bach cantatas as a Festival Artist at the Baroque on Beaver Island Festival (MI) in summers 2014 and 2015.

Nationally, Bridget has appeared as the Fox in Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen with Opera Steamboat, and Charlotte in Sondheim’s A Little Night Music with Pittsburgh Festival Opera, where she served as Young Artist.  Internationally, she has toured Bruckner’s Te Deum as alto soloist with Blue Lake International Symphony.  Her vast concert and oratorio repertoire includes the Ravel Shéhérezade, Duruflé Requiem, Vivaldi Gloria, Handel Messiah, and Bach Magnificat.

A passionate advocate for art song, Skaggs is a founding member of vocal chamber quartet Fourth Coast Ensemble, and was recently named Vocal Arts Associate for Chicago Fringe Opera. She has twice been awarded the Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago’s vocal chamber fellowship.  This season she records music by composer Lori Laitman, and has recorded the American premiere of Paul Abraham’s 1932 jazz operetta Ball at the Savoy for future release.  A native of Southlake, Texas, Bridget received her education at Oklahoma City University’s Wanda L. Bass School of Music, and resides in Chicago.

Artistic Team

Concept/Director
George Cederquist

George Cederquist

Concept/Director

George is the Producing Artistic Director of Chicago Fringe Opera.  In addition, George has directed new productions and scenes with Opera Festival of Chicago, Chicago Dramatists, the Chicago Sinfonietta, Pittsburgh Opera, the Bay View Music Festival, Chicago Folks Operetta, Wolf Trap Opera, and Chautauqua Opera.

Digital opera shorts include ‘Telekinetik’ for Catapult Opera, later screened at the 2025 Prototype Festival, and called “a place where David Lynch would have felt right at home” by the New York Times.

An inspiring mentor, George is the Theatre Department Chair and Artistic Director of Opera at North Park University.  He also teaches at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music, and has taught at DePaul University and Roosevelt University/CCPA.

Now in its tenth season, George is the executive producer of ‘Opera Box Score’, America’s Talk Radio Show About Opera, heard on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and WNUR 89.3 FM Chicago.

George is the recipient of a National Opera Association award, a Best Music Video Award at the Aladerri International Film Festival, two American Prizes in Directing, Opera America’s 2013 Director-Designer competition award, and the German Chancellor Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

George’s training includes residencies with Pittsburgh Opera, the Merola Opera Program, the Staatstheater Darmstadt, and Wolf Trap Opera, and three improvisation intensives at the Annoyance Theatre.  He holds an MFA in Directing from Northwestern and a BA in Theatre Studies and English from Yale.  George is a member of Steep Theatre Company and the American Guild of Musical Artists, and is a dual US-UK citizen.

George lives with his wife, their two children, their cat, and their five chickens.

He proudly uses zero social media platforms.

Concept/Commissioning/Music Direction
Catherine O'Shaughnessy

Catherine O'Shaughnessy

Concept/Commissioning/Music Direction

Catherine O’Shaughnessy is a rising orchestral and opera conductor in the United States and abroad. Avidly committed to Chicago’s dynamic musical scene, she is currently the music director of Chicago Fringe Opera, the assistant conductor of Opera Festival of Chicago, and has appeared conducting productions at Chicago Opera Theater and DePaul University. In 2020, she helped produce Fringe’s contribution to the Decameron Opera Coalition’s Tales From a Safe Distance—winner of the “Best Collaboration” award from 360° of Opera. A semi-finalist in the 2016 Spazio Musica International Conducting Competition, Catherine made her New York debut conducting Antonio Salieri’s La Cifra with the dell’Arte Opera Ensemble. She has also music directed Pyramus and Thisbe in Freiberg (Mittelsächsisches Theater) and conducted Don Giovanni and La Traviata in Orvieto (Teatro Mancinelli). In 2013 she conducted the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra at a sold-out performance in Tchaikovsky Hall.

Concept/Editor
Brad Caleb Lee

Brad Caleb Lee

Concept/Editor

Brad Caleb Lee is a UK based visual dramaturge. With CFO he designed Lucrezia, The Long Christmas Dinner, Woyzeck, Corsair and co-conceived A City of Works. Other collaborators include East Riding Theatre, Opera’r Ddraig, Summer Theatre of New Cannon, Richard Burton Theatre Company, Elan Frontoio, Welsh National Opera, Opera Sonic, Music Theatre Wales, Prague Shakespeare Company, Theatre Tuscaloosa, Hell in a Handbag, and Filament Theatre.

Brad curated and designed YOUR VOICE!, an immersive community-driven exhibition reopening the Wales Millennium Centre, was the Curatorial Producer of Prague Quadrennial 2019, was featured in World Stage Design 2017, and co-designed the award-winning British pavilion, MAKE/BELIEVE for PQ2015 / Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

Brad is the founding editor of Ascending and has previously edited other publications on theatre design. He holds an MA from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama and both a BA and a BS of Commerce from The University of Alabama.

Supported by The CityArts Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events, The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, The MacArthur Funds for Arts and Culture, the Illinois Arts Council Agency. Chicago Fringe Opera is member of Opera America, the nation's advocacy organization for the art form of opera.

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