The past is still present.
​
The 1619 cycle is a collection of eight, one to two-and-a-half-hour operas, whose concept and music are by composer Joseph C Phillips Jr. Each opera is self-contained, however, together they form a cycle that connects stories reflecting several consistent themes throughout the entire sweep of United States history. Illuminating the predacity of American life, but also highlighting the human stories of joy, love, and resistance in the face of that oppression, the 1619 opera cycle is a unique work. While initially inspired by both the 2014 The Atlantic article “The Case for Reparations” by Ta-Nehisi Coates and by the 2019 New York Times The 1619 Project—in particular the Project’s goal “to reframe American history by considering what it would mean to regard 1619 as our nation’s birth year...[placing] the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are as a country”—the cycle broadens those first inspirations beyond black and white to reckon with historical themes through nuance and context in specific time periods between 1619 and now, and onward into the future. One of the goals for the cycle is, as writer Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz expressed, “[h]ow might acknowledging the reality of US history work to transform society.”

In addition to the operas, there are a series accompanying orchestral, chamber, choral, and other non-opera compositions that also amplify and expand on the themes found in the opera cycle. The first two of these works are commissioned: a smaller chamber work will premiere in 2025, and another orchestral work to premiere in 2026.

For the 2023-2024 academic year, Joseph C Phillips Jr will be a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University in which he will spend time doing more research on the 1619 opera cycle through meeting and talking with various historians and faculty at Princeton and other institutions, and beginning to compose operas #2 and #3 in the eight-opera cycle. The initial story treatments for the librettos for operas #4 (by Kelley Rourke) and #2 (by Joseph C Phillips Jr) will be partly funded through a grant from the Puffin Foundation.

1619 Opera #1:
​So Far Behind Now Because of Then

1619 Opera #2:
​Title TBD

1619 Opera #3:
​Title TBD

1619 Opera #4:
​Title TBD

1619 Opera #5-8:
​Titles TBD


Splash page 📸: Aspects of Negro Life: From Slavery to Reconstruction (1934), Aaron Douglas
Header 📸: Louisville, KY survivors of Ohio River Valley flood, 1937