January 1, 2020

Is This America?

Latoya Ratliff, great niece of Fannie Lou Hamer, leads a Black Lives Matter protest, 2020

Music by Chandler Carter and libretto by Diana Solomon-Glover; concept by Beth Greenberg

Is This America? is a 30-minute adaptation of This Little Light of Mine, the story of Fannie Lou Hamer commissioned by Opera for All Voices, a consortium of companies led by the Santa Fe Opera, dedicated to presenting new stories, created by new composers and librettists for new voices. Santa Fe Opera presented a workshop performance of Is This America? on the ship Mary A. Whalen at PortSide New York in Red Hook, Brooklyn on October 10, 2020 in a performance directed by Beth Greenberg.

Students of the opera workshop from the Florida International University School of Music presented the staged premiere if Is This America? at the North Beach Bandshell in Miami on February 27, 2021.