Community Engagement

Telling the Stories of Georgia

WRITTEN BY Jessica Kiger

One of the competing teams performs in the 2015 showcase at Theatrical Outfit from the 24-Hour Opera Project.

JEFF ROFFMAN

Long-time fans of The Atlanta Opera may remember the company’s 24-Hour Opera Project, which brought artistic teams together to create and perform an original opera scene in twenty-four hours. This season, we are bringing the concept back with a bold new vision, and you are invited!

Over four days in June, teams of composers and librettists from historically underrepresented communities, will craft compelling, completely new 10-minute operas. The operas will focus on stories from Atlanta and Georgia’s diverse communities, which have rarely been featured on operatic stages. The winning team will be awarded a future opera commission with The Atlanta Opera and $10,000. We’re calling it the 96-Hour Opera Project.

Atlanta native and international opera star bass Morris Robinson is our artistic advisor on the project and will also join the judging panel which includes Priti Gandhi,

Artistic Director of Portland Opera; librettist and writer Andrea Davis Pinkney; choreographer and stage director Donald Byrd; composer Kevin Puts; and Khori Dastoor, General Director of Houston Grand Opera.

The National Center for Civil and Human Rights, We Love Buford Highway, the Fulton County Library System, the Japan American Society of Georgia, and The Atlanta History Center have provided compelling local story prompts and creative briefs for the participating librettists and composers. The creative teams are currently working on their mini-operas.

The four-day competition runs from June 17th to June 20th . The showcase is hosted in partnership with Morehouse College School fo Music and held at the Ray Charles Center for the Performing Arts at 7pm on June 20th .

The 96-Hour Opera Project is supported by UPS and The Rich Foundation.

For more information about, or to reserve free tickets to the 96-Hour Opera Project, please visit: www.atlantaopera.org/ competition

presents

Judges

Clockwise from top left: Donald Byrd, judge; Khori Dastoor, judge; Priti Gandhi, judge; Morris Robinson, judge and artistic advisor; Kevin Puts, judge; Andrea Davis Pinkney, judge