2023 Pulitzer-winning opera coming to QC

The Quad City Symphony Orchestra (QCSO) will present just the second-ever performance of “Omar’s Journey,” a concert opera based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Omar by Grammy-Award winning artist Rhiannon Giddens and composer Michael Abels.

The one-hour programs will take place on Feb. 1 & 2, 2025, marking a significant highlight in the QCSO’s 110th Masterworks season.

Omar’s Journey is a shortened adaptation of Omar (which earned the Pulitzer Prize for music), recognized by the Pulitzer Prize committee for its outstanding composition. This version was commissioned and premiered by the Ojai Music Festival in California in June 2023, where singer-songwriter Rhiannon Giddens is music director.

Omar’s Journey traces the life of Omar Ibn Said, a scholar from West Africa, who was enslaved and transported to South Carolina in 1807. His unique narrative, written in Arabic, is a rare and insightful document of American history, according to a QCSO release.

“Omar’s Journey” will be about 70 minutes, and Smith also saw it in Ojai. The full opera has had five productions so far.

“It has given me more opportunities for commissions,” Abels said Sunday in an exclusive interview with Our Quad Cities News. He knew the opera was being submitted for Pulitzer consideration, but they don’t announce the finalists until the day the winners are announced.

“You don’t know if you’re in the shortlist,” he said. “The Pulitzer, your publicist cannot call and nudge them. You’re submitted and you just forget about it. One day, I called my lawyer and his greeting to me was, ‘You just won a Pulitzer Prize.’ I had forgotten the day they did it.”

“It’s incredible and I called Rhiannon because I knew shortly we would not be able to talk after that,” Abels recalled. “It was quite a busy day. I think artists dream of having wide recognition, but there’s no way you could co-write one opera and say, ‘Hey Rhiannon, do you think we should win the Pulitzer?'”

He also hopes to write more operas. Premiered on May 27, 2022 at the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, S.C., attended by QCSO music director and conductor Mark Russell Smith, “Omar” was honored May 8 as the 2023 Pulitzer winner for music.

The prize website calls it “an innovative and compelling opera about enslaved people brought to North America from Muslim countries, a musical work that respectfully represents African as well as African American traditions, expanding the language of the operatic form while conveying the humanity of those condemned to bondage.”

The opera narrates Omar’s journey from a peaceful life in his homeland to the challenges of enslavement in a foreign land. Collaboratively composed by Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels, the score beautifully intertwines West African musical elements with traditional opera, the QCSO release said.

“In bringing ‘Omar’s Journey’ to the stage, we’re not just performing an opera; we’re sharing a masterpiece that bridges cultures and epochs through its compelling music and narrative,” Mark Russell Smith (a longtime friend of Abels since their grade school days in Phoenix) said. “The dedication and talent of our soloists and musicians will ensure that this story resonates deeply with our audience.

“The music, rich with emotional depth and cultural significance, showcases the exceptional skills of Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels in creating a score that is as innovative as it is moving,” Smith said. “It’s a privilege to lead such a remarkable ensemble in a performance that celebrates the enduring power of music to tell stories that matter.”

“I am proud of our commitment to perform this powerful work with the QCSO,” said QCSO executive director Brian Baxter. “Omar’s Journey lifts an important largely untold story from American history and connects us to the humanity of those who came before us. I look forward to the myriad ways it will start and continue conversations in our Quad Cities community.”

Concert details

QCSO’s presentation of Omar’s Journey – Feb. 1, 2025 at the Adler Theatre, Davenport, and Feb. 2, 2025 at Centennial Hall, Rock Island — will feature an impressive lineup of accomplished, world-class artists, each bringing a wealth of experience to their roles:

• Soprano (Julie) – Brittany Renee: Renowned for her performance in the same role during the San Francisco Opera’s presentation of the full opera Omar.

• Soprano (Fatima) – To be announced.

• Tenor (Omar) – To be announced.

• Bass-Baritone (Owen/Johnson) – Andy Papas: Papas delivered an impassioned performance of this role in the world premiere of Omar’s Journey at Ojai Music Festival.

• Bass-Baritone (Abdul/Abe) – Norman Garrett: Garrett’s experience includes performing this role in both the San Francisco Opera and LA Opera’s presentations of the full opera, adding a rich perspective to his character.

The QCSO’s collaboration with Michael Abels transcends mere artistic partnership; it is rooted in a lifelong friendship and shared journey in music, the orchestra release said.

Omar’s Journey joins a notable list of operas recently presented by the QCSO, including Karkinos by Quad Cities composer Jacob Bancks (February 2022), Two Remain: Out of Darkness by Jake Heggie (October 2023), and Richard Wagner’s “Die Walküre” (December 2019), further showcasing the orchestra’s commitment to diverse and powerful storytelling, the QCSO said.

Abels is not only known for his concert works but also for his impactful scores in the film industry. He gained widespread recognition for his scores for Jordan Peele’s films, including the Oscar-winning Get Out (2017) and Us (2019), with the latter earning him multiple awards and nominations. His score for Us was named “Score of the Decade” by The Wrap, and he continued his collaboration with Peele in the 2022 film Nope.

Abels’ partnership with Rhiannon Giddens on the opera Omar is a testament to his versatility as a composer. This collaboration, sparked by Giddens’ admiration for his work in Get Out, marks both artists’ first foray into opera composition.

The QCSO has been a significant advocate of Abels’ work. They have performed a range of his compositions, including the lush musical illustration of Frederick’s Fables (November 2021), Delights and Dances (April 2021), and his orchestral work Liquify (November 2017), which was commissioned by the QCSO.

The orchestra also co-commissioned his guitar concerto Borders, performed with guitarist Mak Grgić (December 2022). These performances highlight the QCSO’s commitment to presenting contemporary works that resonate with both local and global themes. Abels’s “Global Warming” (commissioned by Smith in Phoenix in 1991) was done by the QCSO in 2011.

This past weekend, the QCSO performed Abels’s “Liquify,” on Masterworks IV: The Stars Above and Sands Below, with the composer in attendance Sunday. The new concert was accompanied by a premiere film by KV 265, which illustrated the power of water with stunning video of Iceland landscapes.

A double life for “Liquify”

Smith said in 2017, the QCSO Masterworks series had a river theme and commissioned Abels to write “Liquify,”

“This piece is ours, not just the Quad City Symphony’s — it is yours, our community’s piece,” Smith said to the Centennial Hall audience Sunday, Feb. 4. “I always don’t it to be a one-off, commission it in 2017 and never play it again.”

Abels met Salgado in 2016 in Chicago and suggested that he make a film based on one of his works. “I saw his film of ‘The Planets,’ which is wonderful,” Abels recalled Sunday.

He said he was struck by the fact the Mississippi River is a working waterway, but “Liquify” didn’t try to depict the Mississippi exclusively.

“There’s the image of the river as a commercial lifeline and I thought that was an interesting idea,” Abels said. The piece reflects water in its different forms — including waterfalls, and an industrial sounding river, he noted.

“I think of all music as being narrative,” he said. “It helps me to think of a programmatic theme, around which to write the music.”

Smith first commissioned Abels to write “Global Warming” in 1991 for the Phoenix Youth Symphony (which Smith grew up playing in and he became music director), for its 40th anniversary.

Abels said at the time, the Berlin Wall had recently come down, and relations among Russia, Eastern Europe and the West were warming.

“The musical part of the pun is, I was very interested in world music at the time, and I was loving the similarities between different kinds of folk music of different cultures,” the composer said. The term global warming was apt to explain that, and the piece starts by depicting the desert around Phoenix.

The Abels piece has been performed over 100 times around the world. His first orchestral work was a piano concerto he wrote in 8th grade (which he performed), conducted by Smith at music camp in Flagstaff, Ariz.

“It was very Mozartean,” he recalled of the one-movement piece. “When you’re a composer, you can decide what the rules are.”

Abels thought it was great that Salgado filmed “Liquify” in Iceland. “I had every belief that anything he would do would be musical, and that was all I would ask,” he said. “It’s wonderful. I expected this to be good and it’s beautiful. And it’s musical.”

“I think it causes you to listen — I spend a lot of time in my other life listening to music with visuals, thinking about those things extraordinarily.” Seeing the film made Abels hear his music a different way, he said. “That’s the joy of collaboration.”

“For a piece to have relevance and life, and to inspire another artist, is great,” Smith said. “That’s why it’s healthy for us.”

The film for “Liquify” is much different than Abels’s soundtrack work for feature films, in which he pens music to scenes already filmed, and must serve the needs of the filmmaker, he said.

“Each has its own aesthetic; they’re both joyful experiences,” he said. “I’m blessed. This is like an unexpected gift — you wake up one morning and it’s Christmas, and you have this beautiful thing. I didn’t have to do any additional work.”

Abels has finished scoring a new Disney+ series, which will be released in June and announced in a month, he said. It is live action — “a big, giant fantasy, with a huge orchestra,” the composer said.

He also wrote music for a new feature film, “The American Society of Magical Negroes,” to be released March 22.

A young man, Aren, is recruited into a secret society of magical Black people who dedicate their lives to a cause of utmost importance: making white people’s lives easier, according to the film synopsis.

Pre-sale tickets for “Omar’s Journey” will be available for QCSO subscribers starting on April 3, 2024, with public sales starting on May 15, 2024. For tickets and more information, click HERE.

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