{"id":3006,"date":"2025-08-08T00:58:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T00:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/composersofcolorcollective.org\/?page_id=3006"},"modified":"2025-08-08T01:00:24","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T01:00:24","slug":"edmonias-premiere-at-interlochen","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/composersofcolorcollective.org\/?page_id=3006","title":{"rendered":"Edmonia’s premiere at Interlochen"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Composer Bill Banfield, whose opera “Edmonia” premieres this weekend in Michigan.\u00a0\u00a0
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This weekend, almost a quarter century after its initial commission, \u201cEdmonia\u201d is premiering at Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan. The cast includes operatic soprano Amber Cierra Merritt, Broadway actor Sydney James Harcourt, and dozens of high school students from Interlochen Arts Academy, a prestigious boarding school in Michigan for aspiring professional artists.<\/span><\/p>

In a phone conversation, Interlochen director of musical theatre Justin Lee Miller called the opera \u201cunlike anything we\u2019ve ever done before,\u201d and a unique opportunity for the students to be part of something original. \u201cThere\u2019s no cast recording to listen to. There\u2019s nobody to imitate,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>

While an opera program does exist at Interlochen, where Banfield has been an artist in residence since 2021, productions are usually modest and mounted in the school\u2019s small chapel. \u201cEdmonia\u201d is going up in the school\u2019s main theater, which seats roughly 1,000, Miller said. According to the Michigan-based Traverse Ticker newspaper, the production features a rotating stage that cost the school $70,000.<\/span><\/p>

Between the cast, crew, and orchestra, Miller estimated that between 20 and 25 percent of Interlochen\u2019s 550-strong student body is working on \u201cEdmonia,\u201d and still more are participating in other capacities. \u201cEven programs like film and visual arts have been involved,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>

Only a handful of high schools in the country mount operas, and the demands of solo operatic singing are beyond most young voices. However, \u201cEdmonia\u201d is more of a \u201chybrid opera,\u201d Miller and Banfield both said.<\/span><\/p>

Banfield added that if there were a model for the stylistic syncretism of \u201cEdmonia,\u201d it would be the musical \u201cHamilton\u201d \u2014 not because it includes hip-hop elements, but because it \u201clives in a rhythmic motion that is culturally relevant.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cEdmonia\u201d is not trying to be musical theater or jazz, Banfield said, but those musical styles inform his writing. \u201cYou can sing the songs, but it isn\u2019t \u2018sing-songy music,\u2019\u201d said Banfield, the founding director of the Africana Studies department at Berklee College of Music, who received a\u00a0President\u2019s Call to Service Award<\/a>from the Biden administration last fall.<\/span><\/p>

\u201cThe reason we know anything about Edmonia,\u201d Banfield said, is the work of Massachusetts-based art historian Marilyn Richardson, who found \u201cThe Death of Cleopatra\u201d languishing in an\u00a0Illinois shopping mall storeroom<\/a>\u00a0in 1988 under a coat of latex house paint. Much of the libretto is informed by Richardson\u2019s work, and the first part of Act II takes place in Boston, where Lewis lived and worked for two years before departing for Europe.<\/span><\/p>

Lewis\u2019s story is \u201ca true American story,\u201d said Banfield. \u201cIt\u2019s a story about freedom. It\u2019s a story about finding your identity, about creating a piece of art that stands as true as the soul of the artist themself.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

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Banfield doesn\u2019t consider the book closed on the opera, either. \u201cThere is an \u2018Edmonia\u2019, part two, that I want to do,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s how rich her story is.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Composer Bill Banfield, whose opera “Edmonia” premieres this weekend in Michigan.\u00a0\u00a0 This weekend, almost a quarter century after its initial commission, \u201cEdmonia\u201d is premiering at Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan. The cast includes operatic soprano Amber Cierra Merritt,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3006","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/composersofcolorcollective.org\/?author=1"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":null,"rttpg_excerpt":"Composer Bill Banfield, whose opera “Edmonia” premieres this weekend in Michigan.\u00a0\u00a0 This weekend, almost a quarter century after its initial commission, \u201cEdmonia\u201d is premiering at Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan. The cast includes operatic soprano Amber Cierra Merritt,...","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/composersofcolorcollective.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/composersofcolorcollective.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/composersofcolorcollective.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/composersofcolorcollective.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/composersofcolorcollective.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3006"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/composersofcolorcollective.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3009,"href":"https:\/\/composersofcolorcollective.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3006\/revisions\/3009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/composersofcolorcollective.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}