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Paula Kimper

Biography

Paula M. Kimper, a graduate of Eastman School of Music, is a composer of
opera, theater, dance, film, and song. Her first opera, PATIENCE & SARAH
(Lincoln Center Festival, New York City, 1998), was commissioned and produced
by American Opera Projects. The revival of the opera in 2016 at the Off-
Broadway Players Theatre in NYC received subsequent productions in Chicago
(Third Eye Theatre Ensemble, 2018) and NYC (Hunter College Opera Theater,
2019). THE CAPTIVATION OF EUNICE WILLIAMS (Reid Theatre, Deerfield MA,
2004) appeared at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in
DC, and toured the Balkan region in 2008. TRUTH, An American Opera about
Sojourner Truth (Academy of Music, Northampton MA, 2012), appeared in the
New York International Fringe Festival 2013, and at Riverside Theatre inside
Historic Riverside Church in 2014. Kimper was an inaugural participant in
Columbia University’s Community Scholars Program. "Here is a Place" was
commissioned by OPERA America for The OPERA America Songbook to
commemorate the 2012 opening of the National Opera Center in NYC. ONE ART
was commissioned by soprano Laure Meloy, who created the one-woman
opera/cabaret based on Elizabeth Bishop’s life, and most recently performed it at
the Tête à Tête Opera Festival 2019 in London, England. Kimper’s catalog can
be found in the Loeb Music Library of Harvard University. Her current project,
MELODY BOOK FOR SONG OF MYSELF, celebrates Walt Whitman’s
bicentennial and his contribution to American life.