Zach Redler, Composer

Matt Foss, Co-Librettist & Stage Director

Kelley Rourke, Co-Librettist

Michael Sakir, Conductor

John Maclean, Speaker

This is a seated performance. If you require accessibility accommodations, please email boxoffice@nationalsawdust.org.

‍ABOUT ZACH REDLER, COMPOSER

Zach Redler is a composer, musicologist, music director, pianist, and educator whose work has been performed in concert halls, opera houses, and theaters around the world. They are the recipient of the American Theatre Wing’s Jonathan Larson Award, ASCAP’s Max Dreyfus Award, and the American Prize for Opera Composition. As a musicologist, Zach’s research on and publications of Marcel Tyberg’s music has culminated in multiple premieres and recordings. Zach spent fifteen years working on the music teams of musicals on Broadway, regionally, and globally. Zach has received commissions from Opera Memphis, Seattle Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Washington National Opera, Opera Montana, Arizona Opera, San Diego Opera, Opera on the James, American Opera Projects, and the United States Army Field Band and Soldiers Chorus. Zach has served on the music faculties of New York University, Manhattan School of Music, and Molloy College. Currently, Zach mentors opera writers as a part of Seattle Opera’s Creation Lab and is the music program director at the Dublin School in New Hampshire.

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‍ABOUT MATT FOSS, CO-LIBRETTIST & STAGE DIRECTOR

‍Matt Foss is a professional playwright and screenwriter whose credits include The Meyerhold Center (Moscow, Russia), Red Tape Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Oracle Theatre, American Blues Theatre, The Jewish Ensemble Theatre and Tipping Point Theatre. He has worked as an actor, director and writer with Montana Shakespeare in the Parks for the past twenty years. In 2016, his touring production of The Glass Menagerie performed at Russia’s Moscow Art Theatre. He is a recipient of the Kennedy Center’s David Mark Cohen National Playwriting Award and his adaptations and productions have won multiple Joseph Jefferson Awards-Chicago’s top theatre prize. Foss was the co-writer and producer of the award-winning short film, Sons of Toledo (2021) and feature film Lone Wolves (2024) and was named one of the Austin Film Festival and Movie Maker Magazine’s Top 25 Screenwriters to Watch. He is a member of the WGA-East.

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ABOUT KELLEY ROURKE, CO-LIBRETTIST
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Kelley Rourke is a librettist, translator and dramaturg. Libretti include Eat the Document, Right Now, Lucy, and Stay (John Glover); The Beekeeper (Wang Lu); The Emissary (Kenji Oh); Jungle Book (Kamala Sankaram); Wilde Tales and And Still We Dream (Laura Karpman); and Odyssey and Robin Hood (Ben Moore). She is the recipient of Opera America’s 2024 Campbell Opera Librettist Prize. Her work has been commissioned and performed by the Metropolitan Opera, English National Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Opera Australia, Welsh National Opera, Washington National Opera, The Glimmerglass Festival, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Chicago Opera Theater, Seattle Opera, American Composers Orchestra, Minnesota Opera, Carnegie Hall, Met LiveArts, Opera Parallèle, On Site Opera, American Opera Projects, Detroit Opera, and Calgary Opera, among others. Kelley is resident dramaturg for The Glimmerglass Festival and Artistic Advisor for Washington National Opera’s American Opera Initiative. 

ABOUT MICHAEL SAKIR, CONDUCTOR

Conductor Michael Sakir has served as Artistic Director of Opera Montana since 2020 where the innovative programming, community partnerships, and robust education programs under his leadership have led to record-breaking ticket sales and company growth. Sakir previously served as Music Director of Opera Memphis where he was deeply involved in the company's groundbreaking civic practice programs and commissioning projects. In the 2025-2026 season, Sakir makes guest conducting debuts with the Manhattan School of Music in L'elisir d'amore, as well as in the world premiere of Laura Kaminsky's Time to Act with Pittsburgh Opera. Other recent guest conducting engagements include Seattle Opera, Arizona Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Opera Baltimore, and Opera Idaho. Sakir has held music staff positions with Santa Fe Opera, Washington National Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Sarasota Opera, among others. He holds degrees from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and The Boston Conservatory.

ABOUT JOHN MACLEAN, SPEAKER

An award winning author and journalist, John Maclean spent thirty years at the Chicago Tribune, most of that time as a Washington Correspondent, before taking up a second career as an author. Since then, he has written five nonfiction books about wildland fires – Fire on the Mountain, Fire and Ashhes, The Thirtymile Fire, The Esperanza Fire, and River of Fire – that are considered a staple of fire literature as well as training material for firefighters. Maclean is the son of Norman Maclean, author of A River Runs Through It, the acclaimed novella about life in early twentieth century Montana. "Turning a well-known literary – and movie – classic like A River Runs through It into an opera is a challenging undertaking. The reward is a fresh perspective from a talented cast and writers who explore themes of love, loss – and fly fishing, of course – to bring the familiar characters to new life. My father would have been delighted to see his story on stage and his words, often only a heartbeat away from poetry, turned to song."

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