The University of Southern Maine School of Music will premiere the original work “Girl in Six Beats.” The work was commissioned by Opera Maine and put together in collaboration with The Telling Room.

The work was composed by Dan Sonenberg, who is the composer-in-residence; he previously composed “The Summer King” at the Pittsburgh Opera.

“Girl in Six Beats” is set to have its world premiere on April 21, 2018, with an ensuing performance to come the next day.

Per a press release, the work was the result of a 30-hour opera camp; the work will be approximately 30 minutes in length. It tells the story “of a teenage girl, whose feeling of voicelessness has prompted her to attempt to take her own life. Prompted by her encounters in limbo with various opinionated characters all eager to design her eternal destiny, she asserts her own voice for the first time and commits herself to life in order to restore her most important relationship – that with her mother.”

Per Professor Ellen Chickering, USM School of Music, “I find this project very creative, to make an opera come alive that has never been performed before! The students and I worked together to make the visual and aural aspects true to the composer’s and librettists’ creative process.”