Key Change: A COC Podcast

In our season 1 finale, co-hosts Robyn Grant-Moran and Julie McIsaac speculate on the future of opera and creation – including who will be telling those stories and who will be watching – in conversations with best-selling author Cherie Dimaline (Empire of Wild, The Marrow Thieves) and COC Composer-in-Residence Ian Cusson. Both hail from the same Georgian Bay community and share their views on creating for future generations, representing their communities, as well as some exciting updates on their own new opera.

Co-hosts Robyn Grant-Moran and Julie McIsaac explore how the visual elements of an opera production come together to create “magic” on stage. They speak to special guests, the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson, former Governor General of Canada and a big fan of Wagner's Parsifal, acclaimed Canadian set and costume designer Michael Levine, and the COC’s own costume supervisor, Sandra Corazza, who shares her tricks of the trade.  

What stories are we telling? Why do they persist? And how can we tell them differently – in a way that invites more people into the narrative? In this episode, hosts Robyn Grant-Moran and Julie McIsaac talk storytelling with soprano and multi-disciplinary artist Teiya Kasahara and award-winning theatre director Ravi Jain.

In this episode, hosts Robyn Grant-Moran and Julie McIsaac explore how we hear opera, with special guests musicologist Dr. Hannah Chan-Hartley and acoustician Bob Essert. They’ll take us through the history and science of why opera sounds the way it does, its evolution through the ages, and how it affects audiences on both a physical and emotional level.

In episode 1 of Key Change, co-hosts Robyn Grant-Moran and Julie McIsaac chat with four guests from inside and outside the opera world about their first experiences with the art form - the good, the bad and the ugly. You'll hear from acclaimed American soprano Angel Blue, who saw her first opera at the age of four; Canadian visual artist Shary Boyle, who draws some amazing comparisons between opera and thrash metal bands; the COC's own Music Director, Johannes Debus; and soprano Midori Marsh, a new member of the COC’s Ensemble Studio training program for Canada’s rising opera stars.

Meet the co-hosts of the COC’s new podcast, Key Change. Robyn & Julie are active opera artists and creators but, above all else, they're opera fans who care deeply about the art form, where it's headed, and how it's connecting with audiences today. Get to know some more about our hosts, then join us for our first episode, premiering October 27.