YSM alum Hilary Purrington composes animated children’s opera, "One Train"

Among the challenges our field faces is the cultivation of new and diverse audiences. For composer Hilary Purrington ’17MMA, that recently presented an opportunity. With a commission from the New Camerata Opera, whose mission is “to engage, excite, and educate through immersive performances that break down barriers and inspire the fans of the future,” Purrington composed an animated children’s opera called One Train. A synopsis of the opera on the New Camerata website reads: “One Train tells the story of Miriam, a young girl who takes a New York City subway ride with her mother on the first day of school. On her journey, she encounters a magician experiencing homelessness. He helps Miriam view the world through the eyes of her diverse fellow passengers.” The 15-minute work can be streamed on the New Camerata website.

Purrington chose as the work’s librettist Hannah McDermott, who was an undergraduate mezzo-soprano at The Juilliard School when Purrington was earning her master-of-music degree there. “She has a great sense of what singers need,” Purrington said, explaining that she trusted McDermott’s artistic sensibilities. Purrington is also a vocalist and sang with the Schola Cantorum and Repertory Chorus during her time in the composition program at the Yale School of Music. “I think that was very, very important for me as an artist,” she said.

With McDermott, Purrington conceived a story that takes place in a New York subway car. Because One Train is a children’s opera, Purrington said, “I wanted to use musical motifs that were easily recognizable” and “could speak to anyone who is new to opera.” Achieving that was a matter of “trusting my own sensibility and preferences,” she said. “Sometimes it’s as simple as writing a melody that gets stuck in my head.”

Of primary importance to the project’s drivers was accessibility. Opera, Purrington said is “not a very accessible art form. It’s hard to find and access” if one isn’t in a city that’s home to an opera company. And recordings, she pointed out, don’t fully capture the experience of attending a performance in person. While One Train exists as a short, animated production, reflecting “the importance of creating an operatic work that is intended for a recorded medium,” Purrington said, “I wanted it to be possible for it to be realized live, as well.” In its original form, One Train features animation by Catarata, a firm based in Chile. Purrington first saw the animators’ renderings before recording sessions began. “It was extremely fulfilling to see all of these elements come together,” she said. Those elements included a cast that reflected the opera’s characters. “The opera company was very deliberate about diversity and representation,” Purrington said.

“I think it’s incredibly easy to surround yourself with people who resemble you—in terms of race/ethnicity, socio-economic status, education, etc.,” Purrington was quoted as saying in a press release. “This opera teaches the main character to look beyond the familiar and become acquainted with the lives of people very different from her, and I think this is an important lesson—particularly for young people.”

Learn about and experience One Train here, and learn more about Hilary Purrington here.