Draft:Basil Considine

Basil Considine (born 1981) is an award-winning American composer, dramatist, arts administrator, and critic based in Minnesota. He is one of the United States' leading new opera critics, has served as the founding artistic director of Really Spicy Opera since 2005, and has authored the scores and libretti for a dozen operas.

Biography

Considine began his musical studies privately at the age of 5, before enrolling in the New England Conservatory of Music's NEC Prep program, the Suzuki School of Newton, and the Boston Archdiocesan Choir School. As a boy soprano, he sang under the batons of John Williams at the Boston Pops Orchestra and Seiji Ozawa at the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He made his soloist debut at the BSO in the 1992-1993 Season, as the boy soprano soloist in John Corigliano's Of Rage and Remembrance, with Grant Llewellyn conducting.

He continued his music and theatre studies at the Coronado School for the Arts, University of San Diego, and Boston University. He was named the Anne Swanke Memorial Scholar at the University of San Diego, and worked with the Old Globe-University of San Diego MFA program in technical theatre, including running lighting in productions with Jim Parsons. He received a master's degree in sacred music and doctoral degrees in music and drama from Boston University.

As a doctoral student, Considine founded Really Spicy Opera, an award-winning arts ensemble specializing in the world premieres of new work. He is a past governor of the National Opera Association, and has composed the music, libretto, or both for more than a dozen operas and musicals, and represented American culture overseas for the U.S. State Department. His play The Abortion Bomb (2011) has been performed domestically and overseas, and was the subject of six university courses in the United States. He has been a professional arts critic since 2012 and a resident of Minnesota since 2013. He wrote the libretto for Jodi Goble's opera Meow and Forever (2023), one of the most performed new operas in the United States.

Considine was named one of Musical America's Top Movers and Shapers in 2018, and the U.S. Fulbright Faculty Scholar to Madagascar from 2021-2022. He has also served as scholar-in-residence and artist-in-residence at numerous museums, including the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library, one of the largest historic house museums in the United States.

Awards

Considine has received multiple awards from the Minnesota State Arts Board and Metropolitan Regional Arts Council.

Criticism

Considine has written for the Boston Music Intelligencer, The Chattanoogan, the Twin Cities Daily Planet, the Twin Cities Arts Reader, and other publications.

References

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Categories:

• Musicians from Minnesota
• 20th-century American journalists
• 21st-century American journalists
• American male journalists
• Opera composers
• Male opera composers