The original concept and text for this work is created by Dagmar Birke. Birke wrote the text and directed Vida la vida-Frida Kahlo, a chamber opera that premiered at the 1994 Frankfurt Festival at the Alte Oper. The production was then taken to Greece where it was performed, in Greek, at the Athens National Opera House. It was awarded the prestigious Kritikerpreis in that same year for the best contemporary musical theatre production. In addition, Ms. Birke was the Director of New Projects/New Authors at the State Theater of Darmstadt in 1996-1999. Her other creation/direction credits include: Fairy Queen, Nightingale and the Rose, Penthesilea, which premiered at the Vienna Festival in 1998, and Brecht Tango, which premiered in the Berliner Ensemble Theatre and was performed in Munich and Buenos Aires. Ms. Birke was awarded the Baden-Wurtenberg Culture Prize in 1998 for New Media. In 1999 Birke received first prize from the Deutsche Musikrat for the video installation Mund for six actors, tape and video. She continues to conceptualize and create new works in collaboration with the highly acclaimed Ensemble Modern.

Don Bogen, the translator of the German text, is the author of two books of poetry. After the Splendid Display (Wesleyan University Press, 1986) and The Known World (Wesleyan, 1997), and the critical study A Necessary Order; Theodore Roethke and the Writing Process (Ohio University Press, 1991). His poems have appeared in Poetry, The New Republic, Partisan Review and other journals; his translations have been included in The Antaeus Anthology (Bantam, 1986) and elsewhere. He has collaborated on musical works with composers Allen Otte, Jennifer Stasack and Marta Pyaszynska. Prizes for his work include a Discovery/The Nation Award, The Writer/Emily Dickinson Award of the Poetry Society of America, and grants from the Ingram Merrill Foundation, the Ohio Arts Council, and National Endowment for the Arts. Professor of English at the University of Cincinnati, he received the George Rieveschl, Jr. Award for Scholarly or Creative Work in 1998.

Mara Helmuth is a composer and researcher primarily involved with computer music. She is Assistant Professor in Composition and the director of (ccm)², the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory for Music Center for Computer Music. She taught at Texas A&M University and New York University previously. She received her DMA in composition from Columbia University in 1994, visited Princeton in 1992, and received earlier degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Her research has dealt with granular synthesis and her public domain graphical programs for computer music composition, Patchmix and StochGran. She has written articles appearing in Computer Music Journal, Perspectives of New Music, Journal of New Music Research and Computers and Mathematics with Applications. Recent work includes sound/animation collaborations with Mary Beth Haggerty, an interactive sound installation, Sound Colors and ports of her software to the Silicon Graphics platform. She is currently involved in an Intemet2 high band-width streaming sound exchange project. Collaborative compositions created with percussionist/composer Allen Otte will be presented on a compact disk from the Electronic Music Foundation in fall 2000.

Audrey Luna, soprano, enjoys a rich and varied career that features opera, oratorio, lieder and concert works. Ms. Luna has performed at the Salzburger Festspiel, Schleswig-Holstein Festival, Ludwigsburg Schlossfestspiel, the Jerusalem Festival, at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., Riverside Church and St. John the Divine cathedral in N.Y.C. The past seasons reflect Ms Luna's versatility, singing such works as Gyorgy Kurtag's Kafka Fragmente and Berlioz's Les Nuits D'ete, Schoenberg's Second String Quartet at the opening of the Schoenberg Institute in Vienna, numerous recitals and operatic roles ranging from Mozart's Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, to Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto. With many oratorio roles to her credit, dozens of recital appearances and over 25 operatic roles, Ms. Luna has earned numerous critical acclamations. Audrey performs internationally with the highly acclaimed Hagen Quartet in cities including, London, Berlin, Vienna, Paris, Salzburg, and Jerusalem and has also toured with Helmut Rilling and the Bach Academie. Ms. Luna spent several seasons as a fest soloist of Bremen's opera ensemble singing as many as 70 performances a season, in a variety of operatic and operetta roles, with guest appearances in many German cities. She has recorded An American Requiem as one of the soloists with Simon Estes and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on the Bonneville Worldwide Entertainment label. In recital, Audrey Luna and pianist Brad Caldwell are performing regularly throughout the midwest and New York. They were chosen as winners of the Vocal Arts Resource Networks, Art Song Competition 1998 and as finalists in the Naumburg Competition in 1999. Audrey Luna is currently Assistant Professor of Voice at Miami University of Ohio.

Allen Otte is founding director of Percussion Group Cincinnati, a percussion trio which for more than a quarter of a century has had an international touring schedule of concerts, concerto appearances, masterclasses and children's programs. Appearances in their national and international touring schedule have included Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, Hong Kong Cultural Center, halls throughout Europe and summer festivals here and abroad including Ravinia and Blossom. Otte is a well known authority on the music and philosophy of John Cage, having made tours with Cage in the US and Europe. Cage, Herbert Brun, Alaskan composer John Luther Adams, and Chinese composer Qu Xiao-Song, along with many young composers from the US, Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia have created a large body of new and often experimental work for the group. As a composer/performer, Allen Otte has presented his own work throughout the United States and at international festivals, including extensive work in computer music with Mara Helmuth. In past summers, he has worked in Lucca, Italy, with opera director Malcolm Fraser creating experimental music theater pieces. Otte is a professor in the conservatory of the University of Cincinnati, where he teaches percussion, composition, eurhythmics, and chamber music. pieces.