The Pioneer Valley Symphony has announced that it will present Life Is a Dream: Celebration of Lewis Spratlan on Saturday, Feb. 20, at 7 p.m. The virtual event will honor the 80th birthday of Spratlan, Amherst’s Peter R. Pouncey Professor of Music, Emeritus, and the 10th anniversary of the world premiere of Life Is a Dream, the opera whose second act garnered him a Pulitzer Prize in 2000.
An article in the Greenfield Recorder describes the opera’s “journey from completion to production.” Spratlan wrote it in the 1970s, while on the Amherst faculty; its full world premiere with The Santa Fe Orchestra came decades later.
The Feb. 20 event “will explore many different works by Spratlan and include reflections from the composer himself via Zoom,” according to the article. “The event will also include brief footage from the original run of Life is a Dream, courtesy of The Santa Fe Opera.”
Also mentioned is a virtual Music at Amherst event, scheduled for May 9, at which the Boston Modern Orchestra Project will premiere Spratlan’s “Chamber Symphony.”