On May 27, 2021, Kaufman Music Center will present an exclusive, work-in-progress performance of composer and producer Lisa Bielawa’s upcoming opera “Centuries in the Hours.”

The work culminates Bielawa’s 2020-21 KMC Artist-in-Residence appointment. “Centuries in the Hours” sets to music excerpts from women’s diaries which span three centuries; Bielawa found these excerpts during her time as a William Randolph Hearst Visiting Artist Fellow at the American Antiquarian Society in 2018 and created the opera with librettist/dramaturg Claire Solomon and director Jess Medenbach.

Among the historical perspectives are those of an 1821 missionary, an 1860 college student, a 1778 Revolutionary War evacuee, and more. Mezzo-soprano Laurie Rubin plays the ghost of Eliza Jumel, the former owner of the Morris-Jumel Mansion in New York where part of the work is filmed.

The performance features students from KMC’s Special Music School High School, including vocalists Julia Ching, Naveah Diaz, Lucie Freeman, Clara Frost, Izabella Gozzo, Fay Levin, Ana Maria Griffin Morimoto, Cirene Mourad, and Zelda Rosenbloom. Student instrumentalists include violinists Serin Park and Olga Tytarenko, violist Oriana Hawley, cellist Italia Raimond Jones, percussionist Benjamin Barham-Wiese, piccoloist Harper Love, flutist Diego Ruiz, and hornist Christina Nelson, with additional performances from violinist Rebecca Fischer, clarinetist Scott Chiu, and pianist Jennifer Taira.

“Centuries in the Hours” is supported by Opera America’s Opera Grants for Female Composers program and the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.