JAMEY J GUZMAN

I always say that I knew I needed to become an opera composer before I had even seen my first opera or written my first piece. Music, storytelling, and activism have always been absolutely intertwined for me, and from a young age I craved a space of music and theater where I could combine my own musical style with the necessary stories of today’s people, and the particular challenges of today’s world. The moment I discovered the beautiful revolution that is contemporary opera – with its emphasis on underrepresented stories and themes, centering of female and BIPOC storytellers, and growing interest in interdisciplinarity and innovation – I knew I had found a creative home. I am constantly inspired by opera’s potential to bring interconnected art forms of singing and acting, visual design, and storytelling to create a whole greater than any single one on their own, and I am devoted to using the power of this art form to illuminate themes such as female empowerment, racial equity, climate action, gender and sexuality, and mental health awareness.
 

A core inspiration of mine is the magic within the collaborative process. As an opera composer, I have worked with over a dozen different librettists and poets to create entire worlds within arias, chamber operas, and song cycles; I find no greater joy than when I hand over a scene to a director to watch them work their miracles, or when I sit down with instrumentalists to find out those moments in music that make every hour of practice worth it to them, so I can weave that wonder into their new concerto. I tend to work very closely with the performers for whom I create; my own extensive experience as a new music specialist on flute has lent me an affinity for (and insistence upon) idiomatic, health-forward writing that puts the embodied experience of the performer before all else, allowing us to together find innovations in technique or virtuosity that come first and foremost from the joy of performance and playing their instrument in the way that feels best to them.

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In my artistic practice, nothing is more important to me than visibility and representation. As a female composer who is also the daughter of an Salvadoran immigrant, I feel a duty to center the stories of communities historically underrepresented, as well as to do all I can to empower others like me to compose and create through my own visibility. In my personal history with opera, I am very fortunate to have worked on projects that let me do exactly this; recent projects have explored themes and realities such as: gendered expectations of aging, newly acquired disability, and discovering sexuality in mid-life; childhood anxiety disorders; postpartum depression and trauma in parent-child relationships; generational trauma, children of immigrant parents, and queer love; homophobia, repression, and overcoming toxic masculinity; and more. I am constantly inspired by opera’s potential to bring interconnected art forms of singing and acting, visual design, and storytelling to create a whole greater than any single one on their own, through the magic of collaboration between two or more minds which coalesce in much the same way.
 

Last month, I completed a commission of a new concert aria for Paradox Opera’s Autonomy project, a benefit concert for Planned Parenthood and response to the Roe v. Wade overturn which presents operatic and visual responses in a gallery experience. I am currently working on a full song cycle commissioned by Opera Arlington which highlights the internal experience of a woman growing up with an anxiety disorder. My first chamber opera, Daughter, deals with realities of postpartum depression, childhood trauma, and healing, and recently received another performance by Nightingale Opera Theatre’s Young Artist Program. My chamber opera Defensive Holding, commissioned by Strange Trace Opera and premiering this winter, tackles homophobia, repression, and overcoming toxic masculinity in sports environments. Open Heart Surgery, another chamber opera, looks at generational trauma, children of immigrant parents, and queer love between young surgeons, while my comedic gardening opera Green Thumbed deals with realities of acquired disability, gendered expectations of aging, discovering sexuality in mid-life, and connection amid toxic capitalist work culture; both works will receive their premieres with Really Spicy Opera on their 2023 tour of Paris and Madagascar. My current work-in-progress, Challenger (commissioned by New Voices Opera), looks at grief, guilt, and ultimate forgiveness in an oratorio honoring the astronauts who perished in the 1986 disaster, and the whistleblowers who were unable to stop the tragedy from occurring.

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I am so very grateful to have the chance to share these works with you. None of them were created in a vacuum; I owe so much to my brilliant collaborators, the librettists and directors and poets and musicians and singers and other creative minds who took a chance to go wandering with me to see what we could find. I also owe a tremendous amount to every mentor who took a chance on me, and every trailblazer who went before me so that I could draw strength from composers and creatives who looked like me. And I owe so much to you, dear reader, for your time, and your interest in what I have to say, either in words or in sounds. I sincerely hope I am able to give you something today, even if small. 

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Jamey J Guzman