Gotham Chamber Opera, known for thoughtful productions in unexpected spaces, announced Friday that its next executive director would be someone with ties to both music and theater: Edward Barnes, the producing director of the Collegiate Chorale.
He will start on June 1, in time for the 15th season of the company, founded in 2000 by Neal Goren, who has remained its artistic director and conductor. The coming year features two full productions: Alessandro Stradella’s 17th-century “San Giovanni Battista” and, at the Apollo Theater in spring 2016, “Charlie Parker’s Yardbird,” a co-commission with Opera Philadelphia, where it will premiere next month.
Notable Gotham performances over the past few years have included Haydn’s “Il Mondo della Luna” at the Hayden Planetarium and Daniel Catán’s “La Hija de Rappaccini” at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Mr. Barnes is no stranger to such site-specific spectacles: for the Collegiate Chorale, he produced the New York premiere of David Lang’s “battle hymns” at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum last year. A graduate of the Juilliard School, he is also a composer and lyricist.