Anna Heflin & Aaron Wolff “The INcomplete Cosmicomics”
Saturday October 25th
doors at 7:30pm | performance at 8:00pm
$20 tickets at the door | $10 student tickets with ID
This performance is supported by BROILER, an Oracle Egg Residency series providing 3 to 7 day residencies to incubate ambitious new work in sound and performance. Learn more here.
The INcomplete Cosmicomics is a stand-alone opera by composer/writer Anna Heflin for vocalizing cellist/actor and electronics in which author Italo Calvino’s mystical entity Qfwfq continues his journey. After being stuck in a void for thousands of years with only a cello and a looper, the incongruous and multifaceted Qfwfq comes to life. Upon exiting the void, he faces a choice: he can either explode into existence as all beings or end linear time. Inspired by Calvino’s The Complete Cosmicomics, Heflin’s work is an original creation in which Qfwfq takes the reins of his own narrative. Equipped with a sharp sense of humor and sensuality, Qfwfq ruminates, charms and hypnotizes in his quest to break the loops of life. The work showcases Juilliard-educated cellist Aaron Wolff as Qfwfq, whose acting credits include Danny Gopnik in the Coen brothers’ A Serious Man.
If you haven’t read Calvino, don’t fret. Everyone will be thrown equally into the void in this new non-adaptation.
Anna Heflin
Anna Heflin is a composer and writer who constructs high-octane, humorous, and sensual worlds with non-linear narratives that thrive on musical and psychological fragmentation. Whether writing a symphony or a staged literature-inspired solo opera for an instrumentalist, she is drawn to the unexpected and channels her highly imaginative virtuosic visions into complex characters and unorthodox narrative arcs that often integrate text and staging. Her core values include trust, risk taking, experimentation, play, open communication, and creative problem solving. She is currently pursuing her Doctorate in Music Composition at USC’s Thornton School of Music. @annaheflin / annaheflin.com
Aaron Wolff
Described by the Chicago Tribune as “a musician of quicksilver brilliance,” Aaron Wolff is a laureate of the 2024 Naumburg Cello Competition, and first prizewinner of the Boston Symphony Concerto competition. As winner of the Leo B. Ruiz Memorial Prize, he made his Carnegie Hall debut in Weill Recital Hall in 2023, and has performed at Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Wigmore Hall, the Musikverein, and Metropolitan and Guggenheim Museums. Committed equally to music new and old, highlights of the ‘24-‘25 season include performances with Grammy award-winning sextet Eighth Blackbird, the premiere of Anna Heflin’s monodrama The Incomplete Cosmicomics at Experiments in Opera, and recitals presented by Valley of the Moon and The Dame Myra Hess series. Aaron has also found creative outlets in acting – most notably a lead role in the Coen brothers’ film A Serious Man – and in arranging and writing about music: he has provided string arrangements for Comedy Central’s sitcom Broad City and concert reviews for the online journal I Care If You Listen.s, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.