Older Americans Month

musical theater at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, where he’s coordinator of the UNO Summer Musical Theatre Academy launched last year. When not building UNO’s musical theater program from scratch, he still conducts, including Opera Omaha’s staging of Sweeney Todd in 2022 and a run of Showboats for opera companies from coast to coast.

“I’ve had some satisfying experiences being more of a builder than a performer of things,” he said. “That’s probably one of the ways my evolution will continue.”

His UNO association goes back years before his current duties, to adjunct instructor in its School of Music. Indeed, his relationship with Omaha dates to 1985, when he began guest conducting for Opera Omaha and other opera companies.

“It was great to be able to go back home to make my debut with the New York City Opera. I was there a number of seasons. That was an exciting time.”

Conversion

None of it may have happened if France did not get interested in the anti-Vietnam War movement, which led him back to music, first as a fledgling folkie performing protest songs, then as a classical pianist.

The real aha moment came when, he recalled, “A piano teacher told me, ‘You are musical. Not everyone is. You have something to offer.’ It wasn’t intended to tell me there was

--France continued on page 8.