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Bruce Adolphe Premieres Work in Washington DC

Bruce Adolphe is well known to CMS audiences, through his lectures and pre-concert Composer Chats, as Meet the Music!’s wacky Inspector Pulse, and through performances of his chamber works. But last night in Washington DC marked a landmark event for Bruce, the composer!

Let Freedom Sing: The Story of Marian Anderson was commissioned by the Washington Performing Arts Society and the Washington National Opera to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Anderson’s Lincoln Memorial Concert. At that concert, Marian Anderson sang for 75,000 people outdoors and millions more via live radio broadcast. She had been denied the right to sing in Constitution Hall because of her race, and so Eleanor Roosevelt publicly resigned from the DAR (the organization was only partly involved in the denial, the decision not to allow her to perform came from the hall’s manager, Fred Hand) and set up the Lincoln Memorial Concert.

The opera was commissioned specifically to tour schools as well as play in theaters, and so it is a chamber work, with only four singers plus keyboard and percussion. One of the four singers plays Marian Anderson, and the other three play multiple parts, including Jo and Jack, Fred Hand, Marian’s mother, FDR, and many other characters as well, including Marian’s cat!

Bruce reports the following:

“The WAPS and WNO chose me to write the score and they also chose the librettist, Carolivia Herron, whom I had never met. Carolivia is a novelist, scholar, and award-winnng children’s book writer. For Carolivia, the story of Marian Anderson was quite personal, as she grew up hearing about how her mother and uncle raced across DC to get to the mall to hear her sing. In the opera, Carolivia’s mother and uncle appear as major characters (Jo and Jack).

“The premiere went wonderfully and there are more performances at the Atlas Theater this weekend, and quite a few more school performances throughout Washington, D.C.

“The singers were fantastic and the young woman who plays Marian Anderson, Brandy Hawkins, was truly spectacular—she has become Marian! There was a standing ovation the moment the opera ended, and the Washington National Opera has already announced that they are going to produce the work again next season.”

Read a little more about the opera
here.

Bravo, Bruce! We’re proud of you!

Press Relations

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