by Jarrett Hoffman
NOTE: ENCORE’S “Tales of the Body” scheduled for Sunday, July 10 has been postponed until next season. Details here.
IN THIS EDITION:
•Ohio Light Opera’s opening performance of Pirates of Penzance at 2:00
•July 4th reflections: the national anthem from the MLK Celebration Chorus, a new piece inspired by great women in politics, and a discussion about music and political upheaval
•Almanac: Paula M. Kimper and her TRUTH: An American Opera about Sojourner Truth
HAPPENING TODAY:
2:00 brings the opening performance of Gilbert & Sullivan’s very catchy, very fun Pirates of Penzance at Ohio Light Opera. (A coincidence or not that today also marks the return of the Cleveland Tall Ships Festival? “Arrr…”) Get tickets here.
JULY 4TH REFLECTIONS:
In the afterglow of a long weekend lit up by bottle rockets, Roman candles, and the like, have a look back at this video of The Cleveland Orchestra’s MLK Celebration Chorus, led by Robert McCorvey, singing the national anthem at a Cleveland Guardians game over the holiday weekend (pictured above).
Over at NPR, a recent Tiny Desk concert celebrated great women of American political history, as Judith Clurman and the New York-based Essential Voices USA Choir premiered excerpts of Clurman’s Washington Women. Click here to listen to these settings of speeches and writings by notable first ladies, secretaries of state, senators, congresswomen, and members of the Supreme Court.
Speaking of which — for many Americans, recent rulings from the Court likely remained on their mind on Independence Day. In the wake of the decision to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion, Ari Shapiro invited NPR music critic Ann Powers and musicologist Shana Redmond onto All Things Considered to discuss “the role of music in moments of political upheaval and social change.” Listen here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Back to the topic of great women in the history of this country, a fitting feature for today’s almanac is an opera inspired by one of the most important names in abolitionism and women’s rights. The work in question is TRUTH: An American Opera about Sojourner Truth by New York-based composer Paula M. Kimper (left), who was born on this date in 1956.
The opera was premiered in 2012 at the Academy of Music in Northampton, MA, while its chamber version was first heard at the 2013 New York International Fringe Festival in a performance by the Paula Kimper Ensemble. YouTube offers up an album of highlights from the opera, as well as a video excerpted from Act III.
Since graduating from the Eastman School of Music, Kimper’s career in New York City has been quite multidisciplinary in nature, ranging from the theater to dance, film, and particularly opera — both as a composer and as director of the Executive Committee of the New York Opera Alliance.
Sojourner Truth is not an outlier when it comes to Kimper’s inspiration: historical figures — and literature — have played a prominent role in her oeuvre. Click here to read more about her works, all of which have been acquired by the Loeb Music Library of Harvard University.