Below are examples of past artist calls. Click on the text to learn more:
White Snake Projects, an activist opera company, is soliciting applications from composer/librettist teams to write short original operas based on their culture’s living holiday traditions as they are celebrated in the US.
While Christmas is an important holiday tradition for many Americans, there are many other holidays celebrated in the United States today. With the beginning of the American “holiday season,” we want to hear about the celebrations that are important to you, your family, and your culture. Some examples of diverse cultural celebrations a composer/librettist team could write a story about are Hanukkah, the Spring Festival, O-Bon, Diwali, etc. The holiday you choose may take place any time of year. We emphasize that we’re looking for stories of lived experiences, not just an exposition of what the celebration is or how it originated. The holiday story must be set in America as we’re showcasing how different cultural and ethnic groups celebrate their special holidays in America.
$800 per Composer/Librettist Team
Piano Vocal Workshop Housing and Travel provided
that demonstrate your story telling abilities. These may include poetry, short stories and excerpts of plays, operas or music-theater works. Neither sample should exceed 10 minutes or 10 pages, if written.
Application Deadline: December 15, 2019
Adjudication: January 2020
Notification: January 2020
Piano/Vocal Score Due: June 15, 2020
Workshop: July 2020
Full Score Due: October 1, 2020
Performance: December 2020
There is no guarantee that a commissioned work will be selected to be workshopped and/or performed.
Please direct any questions to info@whitesnakeprojects.org with the subject: Let’s Celebrate!
White Snake Projects is excited to announce the second year of Sing Out Strong, a community-based project that sets stories to music on activist themes flowing organically from our mainstage operas. Last year was the inaugural launch with SING OUT STRONG: Immigrant Voices, as part of our 2019 new opera, I Am A Dreamer Who No Longer Dreams. In 2020, it’s Sing Out Strong: DeColonized Voices, as the companion piece to our 2020 mainstage opera, Cosmic Cowboy, with its themes of colonization.
2020 is the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ landing on Plymouth Rock, marking 400 years of colonization of our First Nation Natives. Cosmic Cowboy and SOS: DeColonized Voices will be a counterpoint to the many celebrations of this event anticipated to take place in Massachusetts. More broadly, it will give us the opportunity to explore the human instinct to dominate and/or subjugate people unlike oneself by looking at colonial history. It also looks into the future, as today’s scientists research the possibility of one day colonizing Mars. Colonization has made the political world map look as it does today, drawing up borders with no regard for local sensibilities and realities. It has created a legacy of conflict, precipitating the mass migration of people from Central and South America, the Middle East, South East Asia, and Africa.
We are collecting stories from writers about their experiences of the effects of colonization and will commission composers who have experienced, witnessed, and/or who identify strongly against the negative effects of colonization, to set these stories to music. These songs will be presented in free public concerts in May 2020, as well as on WSP’s mainstage as the prologue to Cosmic Cowboy.
NB: SELECTION AS AN SOS COMPOSER OR WRITER DOES NOT GUARANTEE THAT YOUR WORK WILL BE PERFORMED OR PRESENTED BY WHITE SNAKE PROJECTS.
You may write whatever comes to mind, or respond to one or more of the following prompts: