News

We are so grateful for the overwhelming response to our short film. Here is a partial list, with more to come.

Winner

• Best Experimental Film, Short. Sweet. Film Fest, 2026
• The Telly Awards, Craft Writing, Silver, 2025
• The Telly Awards, General Drama, Bronze, 2025
• Best Social Justice Film, Toronto Independent Film Festival of CIFT, 2025
• Best Super Short, World Film Festival in Cannes, September 2025
• Best Social Justice Short, World Film Festival in Cannes, September 2025

Honorable Mention

• Best Experimental, ICE Movie Awards, Spring 2026
• Best Experimental Film, Indie Short Fest, LA International Film Festival, 2024

Screened

• SR Socially Relevant Film Festival New York, 2026
• New York City Independent Film Festival, 2026
• West Chester International Short Film Festival, 2026
• Oakville Festivals of Film and Art, 2025
• Ridgway Independent Film Festival, 2025

To date, Street Muse has been recognized by 13 film festivals as Winner, Honorable Mention or Official Selection. After Premiering at the Oakville Festival of Film and the Arts, it was screened at the Ridgway Festival in Oct 2025. We continue to apply to selected film festivals as a way of connecting with filmmaker around the world. But we created Street Muse to have a social impact.

Please contact Scout@OperaFrontier.org  if you would like information about how Street Muse can help your organization’s efforts to raise funds or serve the homeless.

We were thrilled to have Street Muse premiered in Canada as the short companion to Megan Follow’s feature film, Stealing the Sky. The two films are thematically related to housing insecurity. It was thrilling to meet Megan — who played my daughters’ favorite orphan, Anne of Green Gables.

Click here to see her reaction to Street Muse when I introduced myself at the Red Carpet event.

We’ve been busy applying to film festivals waiting to premiere Street Muse when the time is right. Check out StreetMuseFilm.com to learn more about the making of Opera Frontier’s most recent opera/social commentary film, including introductions to the production team and cast.

Click here to see the Behind the Scenes video.

Postproduction of Street Muse is finished and I’m so happy with the result! What an amazing effort by our marvelous team. It feels terrific to be moving onto the next step — submitting the film to international film festivals. It’s a powerful piece. Street Muse is a 5-minute opera/social commentary film that uses Puccini’s aria Musetta’s Waltz with fresh lyrics to explore the lives of two homeless women. I can’t wait for audiences to have a chance to see it. I’m so proud of our talented team of artists.

Watch the trailer here

What a terrific and exhausting day. Street Muse is Opera Frontier’s first film shot under the guidance of an experienced director with a full film crew. Director Beth Cloutier tells me we got all the footage we need. Street Muse is based on Musetta’s Waltz from La Bohème. With new lyrics sung by a pair of unhoused women, the aria offers an intimate look at how it feels to be seen on the street when homeless. I am beyond excited to see what Director Beth Cloutier and Editor Steve Shlisky will do with what we shot today.

“I was in Ethiopia when I got the email saying “Activist Aria: More Perfect Union” had won an Anthem Award. Here is the “acceptance speech” I recorded in my Addis Ababa hotel – actually on the floor in the elevator lobby between bells and passing guests!! Thank you The The Anthem Awards for the honor. Thank you Shellie Carlson and Ayeneabeba Maru, my sisters at New Leaf Ethiopia Foundation for helping me record this – and for so much more!! The “speech” is supposed to be a one-sentence call to action that summarizes the message of the video. How did I do?”

Watch the award speech here

“Activist Aria: More Perfect Union” won 3rd Top Music Song Award at Jaipur International Film Festival (JIFF) in January 2022. Yogesh Wadhwani accepted the award on behalf of Gail Simpson.

“Activist Aria” Wins at Jaipur International Film Festival

Opera Frontier’s collaboration with Circus Abyssinia fused opera, circus arts and Ethiopian cultural elements into something interesting enough to earn this Bronze Telly Award for “Online, General Music Video”.  We are proud to be in the company of such artists as Jon Batiste of “The Late Show”.
See the list

Watch the Unboxing Video here

The National Association of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) is the organization behind the Emmy Awards. This article appeared in the April newsletter of the SF/Northern California Chapter.
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During Covid lockdown, Opera Frontier entered film festivals for the first time, hoping to reach new audiences.  In March we learned that “Activist Aria: More Perfect Union” was a Finalist nominated for Best Experimental Film in the Indie Short Fest of the LA International Film Festival.

Featured image: Trophy: Indie Short Fest, LA International Film Festival

Join Opera Frontier founder Gail Simpson as she discusses “Activist Aria: More Perfect Union” with host William Thomas Hodgson and panelists Garrett McQueen, a classical musician, and Steve Shlisky, an Emmy-award winning filmmaker. 

“Activist Aria: More Perfect Union” addresses America’s profound and self-evident need to be ‘more perfect.’  In the new work, a frothy Strauss composition becomes the container to hold both the appealing vision and the harsh reality of America, within which we find hope for its future.

Highlights of the Panel Discussion (27 mins)

Full Panel Discussion

Watch “Activist Aria”

Responding to the political turmoil during the 2020 covid lockdown, Opera Frontier created this musical documentary short film. Driven by the musical arc of a brilliant Johann Strauss aria (from Die Fledermaus), the film contrasts the appealing vision and the harsh reality of America, illuminating its profound and self-evident need to become “more perfect”.  As the tempo of the music quickens, the film turns to a celebration of successful and ongoing struggles for social justice and human rights.  Simpson’s lyrics reference inspiring words by Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton!

Watch “Activist Aria” here

Prepared for March 8, 2020 to be broadcast in Ethiopia, founder and artistic director Gail Simpson shares her thoughts about how “Rejoice Abyssinia” celebrates women’s history and the impact young women can have on the world.

Watch the Women’s Day video here

Watch “Rejoice Abyssinia” here

 In January 2019, Opera Frontier went to Addis Ababa Ethiopia to collaborate with Circus Abyssinia.  This piece features western classical music and circus arts, fused with traditional Ethiopian instruments and dance. For the collaboration, Opera Frontier repurposed an aria from Handel’s Messiah (Rejoice Greatly) with lyrics that place the four young women — Ethiopian circus artists — at the center of an empowering scene.

Watch “Rejoice Abyssinia” here

OPERA FRONTIER MADE THE NEWS AGAIN! This time we made it internationally! On January 20, 2019, founder and artistic director Gail Simpson was interviewed on Fana TV in Addis Ababa where she had just collaborated with Circus Abyssinia in the filming of what would become the performance piece, “Rejoice Abyssinia”.

Watch Fana TV interview here

After creating a splendid ruckus at last year’s Bear Valley Music Festival wine tasting event, Opera Frontier returned to add its own kind of flavor to the evening! 

Watch “Sips and Sonatas” Promo Video

These performances feature Heidi Moss Erickson, Gail Simpson, Michael Taylor and the Thalea String Quartet.   

Violettas Shift:  Violetta’s glorious aria from La Traviata re-imagined as a conversation between two close friends at the end of their shift at the restaurant.  They review the delights and sorrows of love, ultimately taking comfort in their friendship and their patrons’ left-over wine.

Watch “Violettas Shift”

Flights of Fancy:  A Song Cycle by Michael Taylor based on tasting notes
Tasting Notes are the formulaic comments that wine critics serve up in their wine reviews.  It is a peculiar but important form of literature, especially for winemakers. Opera Frontier decided to set some to music, recruiting composer Michael Taylor for the task.  Here are the first two songs.

1) Tasting Notes: Two singers share a glass of wine. One singer describes award-winning Mollydooker 2012 Carnival of Love Shiraz using the tasting notes written by Wine Spectator’s Editor-at-Large, Harvey Steiman (with his permission.) The other singer savors a memory triggered by the taste – of a distant summer by the lake.

Watch “Tasting Notes”

2) Bonjour Beaux Frères: This lyrical romp uses colorful language from tasting notes that describe several different wines from Beaux Fréres Winery. 

Watch “Bonjour Beaux Frères”

Opera Frontier in the News-Valentine’s Day Surprise at the Palace Hotel
OPERA FRONTIER MADE THE NEWS! Opera Frontier  Popped-up to surprise dinners at the Palace hotel’s Valentine’s Brunch. It was featured on the local news channel KGO TV 11:00 pm News, Feb 13, 2011!

Watch Opera Frontier in the news

Opera Frontier’s Pop-Up Opera Valentine’s Day Surprise at the palace hotel “delights and surprises” diners!

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