Opera Memphis has received a $25,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts as part of the “Celebrating America250: Arts Projects Honoring the National Garden of American Heroes initiative.”

The grant will support two events that are part of  the company’s 2025–26 season. Opera Memphis is the only organization in Tennessee and one of just two opera companies nationally selected for the award.

The first grant-supported concert, “I Hear America Singing,” was presented in October in collaboration with Crosstown Arts. The performance featured Opera Memphis Handorf Company Artists alongside the Memphis Symphony Orchestra and included repertoire highlighting American historical figures, as well as two new operas with texts by Memphis playwright Jerre Dye and music by composers Kamala Sankaram and René Orth.

The second concert, “I Hear Memphis Singing,” will be presented in spring 2026 and will focus on artists connected to the city of Memphis. The program will highlight such artists as Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin, Johnny Cash, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Bessie Smith.

“The law establishing the NEA puts it perfectly,” said Opera Memphis General Director Ned Canty, per an official press release. “It says, ‘The arts and the humanities belong to all the people of the United States.’ We couldn’t be more excited to do our part to remind every Memphian that saying the arts belong to everyone isn’t just idealistic talk—it’s written into the laws of our nation.”

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