Elodie Lauten, 63

It is with deep sadness that Lower East Side Performing Arts, Inc. (LESPA) announces the passing of its Founder and Executive Director, composer Elodie Lauten on June 3, 2014. She had been suffering from a very aggressive form of cancer and died in Manhattan's Beth Israel Hospital.

Lauten's death came two days after the debut performance of her now-definitive version of Waking in New York, an opera with the libretto created for her by poet Allen Ginsberg about New York City and the diversity of its people, at the Church of St. Mark's in-the-Bowery. 

Read more here.