Last season, Long Beach Opera launched a successful new series of “UnGalas.” This year, Leila Adu joins the continued series, titled 2020 Songbook with a live and fully virtual new music extravaganza premiering on Sunday, November 15th, 2020 at 5pm PT.
The 2020 Songbook is a ticketed fundraising event featuring the premieres of up to twenty newly commissioned works created by emerging composers. The only parameters given to the emerging composers are that the piece be a reflection of an event or experience from 2020, be between 3-5 minutes long, and feature voice plus instrumental or electronic accompaniment if desired. The resulting 2020 Songbook will serve as an artistic time capsule of this very unusual time, as well as contribute to the creative economy by encouraging the creation of new works. The event will include world premiere performances of the new pieces, behind the scenes moments of creation, and interviews with the many artists and performers involved in the project.
The commissioned composers will be mentored by Anthony Davis, Annie Gosfield, David Lang, George Lewis, and Du Yun, who among them have won three Pulitzer Prizes, a MacArthur Genius Grant and a Guggenheim Fellowship and have premiered some of the most interesting and dynamic contemporary operas presented in the 21st century.
Commissioned composers include Anahita Abbasi, Leila Adu, Benjamin Beckman, Jessie Cox, George N. Gianopoulos, Phillip Golub, Clifton Joseph Guidry, III, Carla Kihlstedt, Sonja Mutić, Marcus Norris, Shahab Paranj, Hunter Prueger, Tomeka Reid, Bahar Royaee, Aida Shirazi, Niloufar Shiri, Olivia Shortt, Theresa Wong, Katherine Young, and Bethany Younge
