Experience Florence with Ecce as your guide
Renowned composer and long‑time Ecce collaborator Martin Brody premieres his newest operetta, The Carp, in the place where it was created- Florence, Italy. We invite you to join us for this singular occasion.
The Venue
I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, will serve as the venue for the premiere of Brody’s operetta which was written during his residency there. The villa, located on an estate of olive groves, vineyards, and formal Renaissance‑style gardens on the border of Florence, Fiesole, and Settignano, is a center for advanced humanities research and houses significant art and library collections. Its role within Harvard’s Renaissance program provides an academic context for the premiere, aligning the work with the institution’s mission of fostering scholarship on Italian Renaissance culture.
IT BEGAN WITH A FISH…
Martin Brody’s The Carp is a 45‑minute chamber operetta that transforms a bizarre 2003 news story about a “talking fish” into a witty, hybrid comic work scored for four singers and five instrumentalists. Brody, collaborating with art historian Dario Gamboni, shapes the tale of an articulate carp delivering an apocalyptic message into a playful, genre‑bending piece - part opera, part cantata - where singers fluidly shift between characters and chorus while a clarinet gives voice to the fish itself. The result is a compact, surreal, and sharply crafted operatic world that reflects Brody’s long-standing fascination with modernism, narrative ambiguity, and interdisciplinary collaboration.
The Production
Martin Brody
ComposerMartin Brody is Catherine Mills Davis Professor Emeritus at Wellesley College. He served as composer in residence at the American Academy in Rome in 2001-2 and as Andrew Heiskell Arts Director of the Academy from 2007 to 2010. As a composer, he has received grants and awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Fromm Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts, among others. He has also served as resident composer at the Bogliasco Foundation and La Mortella. He has written extensively about modern music during the Cold War, with special emphasis on the music of Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, and Stefan Wolpe. He is currently President of the Stefan Wolpe Society, Director of One Landscape—an arts and conservation organization—and a trustee of the American Academy in Rome.
Photograph taken by Magali Le Mens.
Dario Gamboni
LibrettistDario Gamboni is professor emeritus of art history at the University of Geneva and an honorary fellow of the Institut Universitaire de France. He engages in issues of visual perception and of interactions (including violent ones) with art. His books include The Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm and Vandalism since the French Revolution (1997), Potential Images: Ambiguity and Indeterminacy in Modern Art (2002), and The Brush and the Pen: Odilon Redon and Literature (1989).
During his stay in Rome, Gamboni continued his exploration of the aesthetics of marble, participating in a workshop at the Bibliotheca Hertziana related to a recent collection of essays, The Aesthetics of Marble: From Late Antiquity to the Present (2021), which he edited with Gerhard Wolf and Jessica N. Richardson. Gamboni also worked on a review of Fabio Barry’s Painting in Stone on the same subject, “for which Rome is a crucial place, starting with the Pantheon, which contains the oldest preserved examples of ‘book-matched’ marble incrustation, a mode of decoration that interests me particularly.” Expanding on his book The Museum as Experience (2019), he revisited the Museo Mario Praz in Rome and sought out similar museums established by artists and collectors.
After his Residency, Gamboni joined I Tatti in Florence as a visiting scholar, together with his wife, Johanna Weis, an artist in residence there.
The Cast
Stephanie Lamprea
Colombian-American soprano Stephanie Lamprea is an architect of new sounds and expressions as a performer and composer. Trained as an operatic coloratura, Stephanie uses her voice as a mechanism of avant-garde performance art, creating 'maniacal shifts of vocal production and character… like an icepick through the skull' (composer Jason Eckardt). She has been praised by Opera News Magazine for 'her iconoclasm and fearless commitment to new sounds... [an] impressive display of extended vocal techniques, in the honorable tradition of such forward-looking artists as Bethany Beardslee, Cathy Berberian and Joan La Barbara.' Her work has been described as 'crystalline' (The Financial Times), 'divinely deranged' (Herald Scotland), and ‘performance art of the highest caliber’ (PopMatters.com). She has performed at Roulette Intermedium, Sound Scotland, Kings Place, Southbank Centre, Helsinki Music Centre, and Casa da Música, and collaborated with Riot Ensemble, the London Sinfonietta, and International Contemporary Ensemble. Stephanie collaborated with artist Jesse Jones to co-create films Mirror Martyr Mirror Moon (Ikon Gallery, Birmingham) and The White Cave (Singapore Biennale). Commissioned by the 2026 Open Ear Festival on Sherkin Island, Stephanie created and perfomed AtLantis AtLand, a site-specific operatic work described as 'one of those rare performances that fundamentally alters how you perceive a place.' (Clash Magazine) Stephanie released albums Quaking Aspen, Georges Aperghis' 14 Récitations, Don't Add to Heartache, and Ecstatic Visions to international acclaim. Quaking Aspen was hailed as 'a bold artistic statement that’s exciting and innovative.' (PopMatters.com) 14 Récitations was described as a 'tour-de-force... sportive vocal adventure of impressive proportions,' (Concerti.de) Don't Add to Heartache was celebrated as 'a fiercely inventive body of work that urges listeners to consider their relationship with nature in an increasingly artificial world.' (The Skinny) And Ecstatic Visions was acclaimed as 'one of the most thought-provoking and imaginative releases in contemporary vocal music.' (Paris Move)
Zalman's Wife | Soprano 
Nathan Halbur
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Zalman | Baritone
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Zev | TenorSamual Rosner
Luis | Baritone Corey Gaudreau
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The Ensemble
Aleksis Martin
With a vision for building something meaningful, our founder brings a blend of big-picture thinking and hands-on experience. They set the tone for everything we do.
Clarinet | The Carp
Emma Burge
Violinist Emma Burge is an avid supporter of contemporary and new music, seeking to combine her classical training with improvisation.. A founder of the new music ensemble Alinéa, formed at the New England Conservatory, she has premiered more than thirty chamber works in recent years—including Arturo O’Farrill’s Tiny Little Walls and the U.S. premiere of Salvatore Sciarrino’s Quaderno di Strada. She has also recorded with singer-songwriter Heather Maloney on her album Soil in the Sky. Emma performs regularly with the Phoenix Chamber Orchestra, Fermata Chamber Soloists, Cape Cod Chamber Orchestra, Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, Du Bois Orchestra, and New Bedford Symphony.
A graduate of the New England Conservatory, Emma is an active performer and teacher based in Boston and Seattle. Her teaching philosophy is rooted in balance, mindfulness, and emotional awareness—helping students develop self-confidence and a healthy, joyful relationship with music. She currently serves on the faculties of the New England Conservatory Preparatory School’s Suzuki Program, Project STEP, and the University of Hartford’s Hartt Community Division, and is the Assistant Director of the Ithaca Suzuki Institute as well as the former Director of the Massachusetts Suzuki Festival. Emma is deeply grateful to her formative teachers—Heidi Flanders, Gabriel Pegis, Ayano Ninomiya, and Lucy Chapman.
First Violin
Anna Pavlou is a Japanese Greek American violinist based in New York. Anna holds a Masters in Music degree for String Studies from Steinhardt School of New York University, studying with Giora Schmidt and Kurt Nikkanen. During her graduate studies, Anna was named winner of the annual NYU Concerto Competition where she performed Ravel’s Tzigane with orchestra. Anna also launched her teaching career at NYU where she was named adjunct faculty, mentoring many undergraduate students from vast violin backgrounds. Anna holds a Bachelors of Music degree from Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where she studied with Herbert Greenberg. At Peabody, Anna was a member of Marin Alsop’s conductors’ orchestra, and worked with maestros, Joe Young, Peter Oundijan, Dalia Stasevska, and Rune Bergman. Recently, Anna played in New World Symphony during the 2025-2026 season, working with John Adams and Stephane Deneve and actively plays in NYC organizations such as NYC orchestra project, Chelsea Symphony, and Carnegie Hall Link up Orchestra, while continuing freelance work in NY.
Second ViolinAnna Pavlou
Philip Rawlinson is a Boston-based violist/violinist interested in exploring the relationship between string playing and multimedia, and in how interdisciplinary work can help to defamiliarize classical forms of expression. Their work lives in the tangled space between genres, tying together contemporary, baroque, and folk into something else. Philip is always experimenting towards how we might give materials multiple forms through altered approach and continued collaboration with others, searching for how that collaboration can foster something more urgent and nourishing for each particular moment. Philip is a graduate of New England Conservatory, and currently enjoys working as a teacher to young strings students alongside collaborative performance and creative projects within their community.
ViolaPhilip Rawlinson
Robbie Bui is first recognized as a contemporary cellist, but his creative life stretches beyond the singular label. He is a frequent new music collaborator, a composer, a full-time nonprofit arts administrator, a portrait photographer, a collaborative pianist, pop violinist, and even once a mediocre piccolo player. His early fascination with orchestral instruments in his youth symphony days lead him to pick up composition: he later graduated with a Bachelors of Music With Honors in Composition from New England Conservatory as a Presser Scholar and as the commencement speaker. That curiosity evolved into a deeper exploration of interpretation, culminating in a Master of Arts and Doctor of Musical Arts in contemporary cello performance at University of California, San Diego. Through this mixed background, he invests consideration of music’s theoretical construction into his performance expressivity, leading to dozens of new pieces dedicated to him as a soloist and chamber musician.
Robbie currently plays in ECCE, Palimpsest Ensemble, Alinéa, and anywhere and wherever he is needed throughout San Diego. Some of his favorite spaces he’s been a soloist, recitalist, guest resident, or composer include the Koussevitzky Shed, Seiji Ozawa Hall, Jordan Hall, the DiMenna Center, Conrad Prebys Music Center, McGill Schulich School of Music, Bombyx, Mandeville Auditorium, and the San Diego's Public Libraries. He’s presented and been in residence at festivals such as the Darmstädter Ferienkurse, Klangspuren, Etchings Festival, Orford Music Academy Contemporary Workshop, and Vienna Summer Music Festival. Beyond music, he is a professional freelance photographer specializing in creative portraiture and performance documentation. Across music, art, and all of his daily life, he is grounded by the same principles: curiosity for the novel, dedication towards craft, and enthusiasm for trying to do a little bit of everything.
CelloRobbie Bui
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Meet us in Florence…
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Michelangelo Package
Dinner in Florence with cast members
Reception at I Tatti
Tickets to the show
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Raphael Package
Vineyard tour and wine tasting
Lunch with Martin Brody
Dinner at Acqua with cast members
Reception at I Tatti
Tickets to the show
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Da Vinci Package
Vineyard tour and wine tasting
Lunch with Martin Brody
Dinner at Acqua with cast members
Reception at I Tatti
Tour of the Academia
Tickets to the show
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WHAT TO EXPECT
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