Please join WWI President Karen Karbiener for a lively discussion with The American Opera Project Interim General Director Charles Jarden and NYU Tisch faculty members Randall Eng and Sam Helfrich, whose students have created new operas inspired by—and even featuring—Walt Whitman and Audre Lorde. Composers Durra Leung and Sean Havrilla, librettists Peyton Marion and Troy Defour, and singer Nathaniel Sullivan will discuss the genesis and development of these exciting new works “The Walt Whitmans of Fort Greene Park,” The People vs. American Cheese,” and “West Love ’89”, which premiere on May 25th at NYU. Preview their work while learning about their writing process, and– if you’re lucky enough to be listening live– ask the composers, librettists, and performers a question about these fresh new imaginings of Whitman and Lorde’s lives and art.
For further information, or to buy tickets for future events, please see: https://www.aopopera.org/events
RANDALL ENG’s music lies at the intersection of opera, music-theatre, and jazz. His
operas Florida, Henry’s Wife, and Before the Night Sky have been presented by UrbanArias, Lyric Opera Cleveland, New York City Opera’s VOX Festival, The American Opera Project, the
Virginia Arts Festival, OPERA America, and the Center for Contemporary Opera. His short
opera Norfolk premiered as part of the Fractured Mosaics program by White Snake Projects in
April 2023, alongside a set of interludes that he composed in collaboration with the hip hop
artist Jason Chu.
Recent non-theatrical works include Harbor, a song for soprano and orchestra created with
U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith for the Boston Pops; the choral work Remain, a setting of
an immigration rights pamphlet for MasterVoices Chorale; and Miracles, a setting of a Walt
Whitman poem for Mirror Visions Ensemble that premieres at Merkin Concert Hall in May 2023.
He has been awarded grants, prizes, and residencies from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation,
the Montalvo Arts Center, the Ucross Foundation, the John Duffy Composers Institute at
the Virginia Arts Festival, Tapestry Opera, and New Dramatists.
Randall is a graduate of Harvard University, Cambridge University, and NYU/Tisch’s
Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, where he is now an Associate Arts Professor.
Together with stage director Sam Helfrich, he founded and leads the AOP/Tisch Opera
Lab. www.randalleng.com.
Karen Karbiener, president and founding member of the Walt Whitman Initiative, is a Whitman scholar and teaches at New York University. Winner of the Kluge Fellowship at the Library of Congress and a Fulbright recipient, she has published widely on Whitman and is currently completing a biography of the poet during his New York years.
We look forward to seeing you for the livestream on our YouTube channel on April 24th at 1 pm (EST).