Virginia nonprofits pair youth with world-class composers -

LYNCHBURG, Va. — Olivier Glissant, an internationally renowned Brooklyn-based composer, is working on a new composition with an unexpected inspiration — a poem by 12-year-old Titus Beatty, who is collaborating with Glissant to create a work in response to COVID-19 and the social unrest that has overturned life across the globe.

“Life These Days” is a collaborative project that pairs Lynchburg students with established composers to create a unique song based on the students’ work and record conversations between the composers and the young poets.

A partnership between The Listening, Inc. and Opera on the James, “Life These Days” seeks to reflect and respond to personal, social and cultural changes that have impacted students since the beginning of the pandemic.

From his home in Lynchburg, Titus sat down with Glissant over Zoom, a video conferencing platform, and began sketching a rough outline of what the piece could become.

Glissant is the founder of the Brooklyn Orchestra and producer and founder of Blacksalt Records. A long-time friend of Marco Nistico, executive director of Opera on the James, Glissant is not only working directly with Titus to create a piece, but will be helping produce the music series as a whole.

“For me, art is a form of protest, and the ultimate form of expression,” Glissant said. “Art is one of the best ways to fight, react and give people hope.”

Over a series of meetings, Titus and Glissant will discuss how to blend their styles and vision, and Glissant said he ultimately plans to use the Brooklyn Orchestra musicians to record a piece — letting Titus see his work play out beyond the page.

Glissant said Titus likes hip-hop and old-school rap, elements Glissant hopes to blend into an orchestral composition, and figure out how to make an operatic aria with a musical track that would evoke that influence.

Rox Cruz, director of development for The Listening, said the program evolved after Freedom School — a program hosted by The Listening to keep children focused on literacy, art and social action — was canceled for the summer. She wanted to combine hip-hop and opera to show students that if they write lyrics, they can write poetry — work that can be translated to opera.

Cruz said The Listening currently has six children lined up to take part in the program, but the organization hopes to create 10 unique songs over the course of the next few months, with 10 separate pairs of students and composers.

“Had this pandemic not happened, this project would not have happened,” Cruz said. That’s has been a silver lining, she said, along with watching students build relationships with famous composers, often people living far away and otherwise inaccessible.

“Collaboration and communication matters,” Cruz said. “In middle school, you don’t often hear that from adults. Now you are being told, ‘Your opinion matters to me.’ There is value in this work.”

Nicholas Steven George, founder and executive director of The Listening, said he ultimately wants to see the project turn into a live event — where all of the compositions can be brought to life at a live Lynchburg show.

More than that, he wants the students to find the connection between spoken word and opera, sidestepping the initial teenage nervousness and anxiety to reach their potential.

“I hope students continue to see the kind of impact that their voices have,” George said. “I hope that they are able to move from it being something distant and unattainable (and are) able to see the community as interested, as needing their voices to be more a part of their cultural conversation.”

Kamala Sankaram, an Indian American composer, vocalist, playwright and actress based in New York City, is also involved in the project. More composers also are slated to join.

Glissant said creating the song based on Titus’s work will likely be about a one month process, and eventually he hopes to release the recordings as a record on his label.

Watching entire musical seasons be canceled has been devastating, Glissant said, and artists are desperate to find ways to keep going, even if it’s remotely.

His inaugural gala with the Brooklyn Orchestra was canceled in March, an ambition he had planning for decades, but he is “recalibrating” everything to transfer the season outdoors, finding parks around New York City where his artists can still perform.

“Art has to go on,” Glissant said. “So whatever the circumstances, we have to keep going ... we are all together, there is nothing better for me than to share music and collaborate with a young poet and open their minds.”

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