MORE Opera

Music gives pleasure and inspires the soul, enabling us to express, emote and gain understanding. Opera is possibly the most complete art form, and participation in an opera chorus can have a transforming effect. “OPERA UNLIMITED” introduces amateur choristers and audiences to opera and bridges diverse communities. ADVANCE/MORE Opera has presented opera themed outreach concerts throughout Manhattan to under-served audiences in Harlem, Manhattan Valley and Chinatown/Little Italy since 2000. We have diversified audiences, black, white, professional, working class, families and seniors. We have targeted and reached Manhattan Valley residents and seniors specifically and Harlem area residents who are interested in learning about the history and contributions of African-American opera singers and musicians. Our concerts provide a context for these communities to better understand their heritage from past accomplishments to the present day. Through the years, we have been successful in reaching our artistic goals, in targeting and reaching specific communities with our educational and inspirational messages about the musical contributions of African-American opera singers, and audience development via our community outreach projects. We engage accomplished solo artists from diverse backgrounds, arts educators and narrators from the community for our educational projects, and choruses from within the targeted communities to interest them in the history of the African-American classical singer. We engaged audiences who had never heard us perform with new and interesting information. We evaluated the success of each event based on feedback from the audience, their desire to see another performance and or requests for videos and souvenirs. We also compared and evaluated each concert to identify the best aspects of each to utilize in future performances.