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Biography
Young Puerto Rican composer Johanny Navarro is one of the most exceptional artists of her generation. Navarro has worked on commissions for important music soloists like Elisa Torres, Luis Miguel Rojas, and Andrea González Caballero, and organizations like Multicultural Music Group, Inc. and Boston Opera Collaborative; has also composed for ensembles like The Catholic University of America Symphony Orchestra, American Harp Society, Inc., New World Symphony, America’s Orchestral Academy, Victory Players, and Coralia from the University of Puerto Rico.
Her piece Celebration for piano trio (2016), was selected by The Arts Club of Washington D.C. as a commemorative work for the celebration of its centenary. Videntes Stellam for choir and orchestra (2016) was premiered at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington D.C. and televised on EWTN channel. With this majestic and colorful work, the composer made her debut with the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, conducted by maestro Roselín Pabón at the José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum of Puerto Rico. Her first chamber opera, Frenesí (2017), was premiered in Washington D.C. The next year, it was presented at the Bertita y Guillermo L. Martínez Theater of the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music, and in 2019 achieved repositioning of its setting to opera al fresco, at the Ballajá Barracks in Viejo San Juan in a production of The Opera Theater. Consequently, Navarro was chosen as participant in the Puccini International Opera Composition Course in Lucca, Italia, where she was mentored by composer and director Giralomo Deraco. Her second chamber opera, Redención (2019), premiered at the Puccini Chamber Opera Festival 2021 in Italy.
Johanny Navarro has an ample catalog of diverse work and is deeply rooted in Afro-Caribbean musical aesthetics, essentially in Puerto Rican musical culture. Her music, moreover, has been presented in Cuba, Mexico, Spain and France. In 2020, featured as resident artist at the Massachusetts International Festival of Arts (MIFA) and her piece Celebration was part of the Casals Festival program. Her opera ¿Y los Pasteles? Ópera Jíbara en dos actos, work for which she was awarded the Discovery Grant (2020) from Opera Grants for Female Composers by Opera America is scheduled to premiere in July 2022 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Navarro is a resident artist at the American Lyric Theater in New York.
OPERA America/Opera.ca Grants Awarded
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| GRANT NAME | YEAR | Opera Grants for Women Composers: Discovery Grants | 2020 |
Productions
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Artist Information
All information is derived from OPERA America's Season Schedule of Performances and titles databases which date back to 1991. OPERA America is constantly updating this data. If you feel that a work or an artist has been omitted or that information is incorrect, please use the linked forms below. Title Information Form Artist Information Form
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