About the Performance

Conceived as both performance and catalyst for change, Jubilee: A Folk Opera is adapted from Margaret Walker’s 1966 novel Jubilee. Walker was the first Black woman to win the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition, receiving the honor in 1942.

The work-in-progress spotlights the true-life story of Walker’s great-grandmother Vyry. Born into slavery, Vyry fights to protect her family as they move through Emancipation and Reconstruction, reaching for a freedom that remains contested across generations.

Scored with blues, jazz, and gospel influences, Jubilee: A Folk Opera weaves Walker’s poems from This Is My Century, set to music by Randy Klein, into a powerful narrative shaped by Joan Ross Sorkin’s original arias and recitative. Themes of love, family, survival, resilience, hope, and healing are woven throughout the work.

In its final developed form, the opera will feature six principal singers and two choruses: an African American “enslaved people’s chorus” and a mixed-race “modern people’s chorus.” The production will also incorporate dynamic digital projections of historical imagery to create a vivid, contemporary stage world.

At Yale Schwarzman Center, audiences will experience this work-in-progress during its most creative initial development. The May 28 concert reading is a precursor to a June 14 presentation of the work to be hosted by Jackson State University.

Jubilee is generously sponsored by Yale ASCEND in partnership with Yale Innovation Summit, Yale Schwarzman Center, and Yale School of Music. Music by Randy Klein. Libretto by Joan Ross Sorkin. Conducted by Julius Williams.