Tania Justina León (b. 1943)
is featured at AfriClassical.com and
has a web site at http://www.tanialeon.com/
Henry Louis Gates Jr
Rahoul Ghose/PBS, via Associated Press
Ever since John Adams had his first operatic
hit with “Nixon in China,” operas based on the headlines and recent
history rather than mythological tales and literary adaptations have
become plentiful. The University of Central Arkansas is hoping to add the story of the Little Rock Nine –
nine black students who enrolled at what had been an all-white high
school in Little Rock, Ark., in 1957 – to the operatic annals. The
school is in the process of commissioning the composer Tania León and the scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr.
to create a work about the incident, and hopes to present the premiere
in September 2017, around the 60th anniversary of the events.
Rollin Potter, the former dean of the College
of Fine Arts and Communications at the university, began the
commissioning process and agreed to stay on to see it through. He said
on Tuesday that he had selected Ms. León to compose the work after
reviewing recordings by several composers with members of the music
faculty. Ms. León brought Mr. Gates into the project as its librettist.
“This is Tania León’s initiative entirely,”
Mr. Gates said in an email, “and I was flattered that she suggested that
we work together. Tania and I were fellows at the Rockefeller
Foundation’s research center in Bellagio on Lake Como back in 1992, and
we have been very good friends since then.”
Comment by email:
Comment by email:
What a team! I'd bet Dave Baker, Dorothy Rudd Moore, Adolphus Hailstork, and Bill Banfield could also have done the job! Dominique-René de Lerma http://www.CasaMusicaledeLerma.com
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