Celebrating Kwamé Ryan conducting The Time for our Singing: From Novel to Opera

​This Blog is being  written after the incredible opera conducted by Kwamé Ryan has been premiered in Brussels on Tuesday, September 14, 2021 and may be viewed via web stream online from Friday, September  24 at 1.00 pm EST (March 2022).  According to the text of the programme booklet,   The Time of Our Singing, published in a Dutch and French translation,  the Opera is based on “a magnificent, multifaceted novel about a supremely gifted―and divided―family, set against the backdrop of postwar America, from the Pulitzer Prize–winning and bestselling author Richard Powers” 
 
In celebration of this occasion, GOFAD had intended to review the novel, but having read the amazing connectedness  of Maestro Ryan to this novel-opera, thought it best to let readers experience  his unadulterated views  of  what he labels  of “Mixedness - Unified in Time” 
 
The Essence of the Novel 
 
Glimpses of  the novel’s  power and meaning   should be a further enticement.
 

• The Time of Our Singing  is a story of self-invention, allegiance, race, cultural ownership, the compromised power of music, and the tangled loops of time that rewrite all belonging”

 

• “The plot concerns a family essentially brought into being by racism. In 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution refused the outstanding black contralto Marian Anderson use of the premier concert venue in Washington D.C.  As a result, she gave a free open-air concert to 75,000 people on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.”

 

• “Jonah, Ruth and Joseph [the main characters in the novel]  are the children of mixed-race parents determined to raise them beyond time, beyond identity, steeped in song. Yet they cannot be protected from the world forever.”

 

•  “From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author  —— an enthralling, wrenching novel about the lives and choices of one family, caught on the cusp of identities.”

 
You may read the  documentation of Kwamé Ryan’s connectedness as a conductor to the orientation of the novel  in this link: https://www.lamonnaie.be/en/mmm-online/2141-mixedness---unified-in-time
 
 
An Eloquently Profound  Preview of the Opera 
 
It is further worth your time to listen to the  YouTube  preview of the opera, by conductor  Kwamé Ryan, whose production was delayed  due to the COVID 19  pandemic. Bringing to life 'The Time of Our Singing', Kris Defoort's latest opera based on the novel by Richard Powers, Kwamé  states:  “This production would have been immensely relevant one year ago, and it's even more important to create it today". See link https://youtu.be/v8A9O0Ye1J0 
 
 
Who is  Kwamé Ryan? 
 
Kwamé Ryan was born in Canada and grew up on the Caribbean island of Trinidad, where he received his early musical education. He completed his studies reading musicology at Cambridge University, and specialising in conducting at the International Eötvös Institute. He held the position of General Music Director of Freiburg Opera between 1999 and 2003, and that of Musical and Artistic Director of the National Orchestra of Bordeaux Aquitaine between 2007 and 2013. When not on the podium, Kwamé Ryan dedicates his time to educational and community development work as Director of Trinidad and Tobago’s Academy for the Performing Arts (APA) and Chairman of the youth art Non-Profit Organisation Searchlight International. 
 
For those wanting to connect more directly with Kwamé  and his work, you may explore his new website www.kwameryan.com
 
I am sure Kwamé would appreciate your comments. 
 
 
Eddie Greene