Jeff Lunden
Jeff Lunden is a freelance arts reporter and producer whose stories have been heard on NPR's Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Weekend Edition, as well as on other public radio programs.
Lunden contributed several segments to the Peabody Award-winning series The NPR 100, and was producer of the NPR Music series Discoveries at Walt Disney Concert Hall, hosted by Renee Montagne. He has produced more than a dozen documentaries on musical theater and Tin Pan Alley for NPR — most recently A Place for Us: Fifty Years of West Side Story.
Other documentaries have profiled George and Ira Gershwin, Stephen Sondheim, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein, Lorenz Hart, Harold Arlen and Jule Styne. Lunden has won several awards, including the Gold Medal from the New York Festival International Radio Broadcasting Awards and a CPB Award.
Lunden is also a theater composer. He wrote the score for the musical adaptation of Arthur Kopit's Wings (book and lyrics by Arthur Perlman), which won the 1994 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Musical. Other works include Another Midsummer Night, Once on a Summer's Day and adaptations of The Little Prince and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for Theatreworks/USA.
Lunden is currently working with Perlman on an adaptation of Swift as Desire, a novel of magic realism from Like Water for Chocolate author Laura Esquivel. He lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.
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The NY Philharmonic has commissioned 19 women to create new works to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the passing of the 19th Amendment. It's called Project 19. -
The PROTOTYPE festival, now in its 10th year, presents new operas and music-theater works in smaller settings. "We were trying to create a black box opera movement," says co-founder Beth Morrison. -
Kelli O'Hara, Renée Fleming, and Joyce DiDonato star in a new opera based on Michael Cunningham's book. -
In 2014, a study found that only 1.4% of orchestra musicians were Black. In 2022, it's hard to know if that number is better or worse. -
The big-voiced soprano is in her mid-thirties, and she didn't even hear an opera live until she was in her twenties. Now, she's a sought-after opera singer. -
Composer, conductor and MacArthur "genius" Mathew Aucoin just debuted his opera, 'Eurydice,' at the Met. The new work reinterprets an ancient, archetypal myth from the perspective of its namesake. -
The eloquent pianist used a work break imposed by the pandemic to learn something new: stage directing, a skill set she put to use in creating a multimedia recital. -
Isolated by pandemic last year, violinist Jennifer Koh asked prominent composers to donate tiny pieces, and to nominate fellow up-and-coming composers to receive paid commissions. -
The Boston Symphony Orchestra recently returned to its storied summer home, Tanglewood, after the pandemic canceled last season. With reopening comes normalcy, as well as an opportunity for growth. -
Known for its deft handling of canonical classics and contemporary music, the Attacca Quartet breaks new ground on a major-label debut featuring music by Flying Lotus, Squarepusher and other EDM acts.
