The Atlanta Opera announces winners of its 96-hour Opera Project | EarRelevant

EarRelevant Staff | 21 JUN 2021

Atlanta, GA— On Tuesday, The Atlanta Opera announced composer Marcus Norris and librettist Adamma Ebo as the winners of its inaugural 96-Hour Opera Project: Stories that Resonate.

The showcase and competition, which ran June 17 – 20, 2022, and concluded on Monday with performances in front of an audience of several hundred at the Ray Charles Performing Arts Center at Morehouse College, involved six teams of composers and librettists who had four days to stage entirely original and compelling 10-minute operas based on true stories provided by Atlanta-area story partner organizations.

96-hour Opera Project winners Marcus Norris and Adamma Ebo. (Courtesy of the Atlanta Opera)

The six teams began developing their works with assistance from their story partners using archival information, artifacts, personal accounts, and more before arriving in Atlanta.

Norris and Ebo’s work, titled Go On With the Wind, used dark humor to imagine the reactions of a Morehouse Glee Club singer invited to sing at a party celebrating the premiere of the 1939 film, Gone With The Wind, based on information supplied by their partner, the Atlanta History Center. The composer and librettist will share a $10,000 cash prize and receive a commission from The Atlanta Opera to write a chamber opera. The other ten finalists received a $1,000 honorarium.

UPS and The Rich Foundation sponsored the event. The Atlanta Opera provided travel, housing, singers, pianists, and rehearsal space for the 96-hour Opera Project with support from Morehouse College.

In partnership with Georgia Public Broadcasting, The Atlanta Opera Film Studio will produce a mini-series using filmed portions of the competition and supplemental interviews that GPB stations will broadcast across the state and online in mid-July. The first episode will premiere Monday, July 11 at 7 pm, with the second and third episodes airing the following two nights. All three programs will repeat Sunday, July 17, from 3–6 pm.

The mini-series will also feature the other five finalist teams who participated in the project:

Johanny Navarro, composer & Deborah Mouton, librettist
(story partner: National Center for Civil and Human Rights)
History may never reveal the full details of the 1906 Atlanta Race Massacre. Navarro and Mouton explore a fictional and personal retelling from the perspective of prosperous Auburn Avenue residents.
Jorge Sosa, composer & Alejandra Martinez, librettist
(story partner: We Love Buford Highway)
Guillermo Cesario of Atlanta Warriors Martial Arts Studio is a hero to the Mexican-American community on Buford Highway. Martinez and Sosa’s work has Guillermo sharing immigrant stories with his martial arts mentor.
Carlos Castro, composer & Diana Solomon-Glover, librettist
(story partner: Atlanta History Center)
The Atlanta History Center has one of the preeminent collections of artifacts from the “Colored Troops” who served in the Civil War. The team connects past and present with words and symbols from a regimental flag evocative of the current Black Lives Matter movement.
Roydon Tse, composer & Marcus Yi, librettist
(story partner: Japan American Society of Georgia)
Tse and Yi share the story of Decatur resident Jimmy Doi, a Japanese-American who was forced to an internment camp in California after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He later served in the US military during World War 2 and used a post-war posting in Japan to search for his father.
Saman Shahi, composer & Isabella Dawis, librettist
(story partner: Fulton County Library System)
Shahi and Dawis explore the confluence of achievement and loss during the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. A participant in the Paralympics has a chance encounter with a displaced Atlanta resident at Piedmont Park.