Opera Memphis Will Receive National Endowment For The Arts Grant For America250 Projects

Opera Memphis will receive a $25,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts as part of Celebrating America250: Arts Projects Honoring the National Garden of American Heroes. The funding will support two projects during the company’s 2025–2026 season.

“As our nation approaches its 250th anniversary, the National Endowment for the Arts is honored to support communities across the country in recognizing the individuals whose contributions have defined our history,” said NEA Senior Advisor Mary Anne Carter. “Opera Memphis's project plays a significant role in commemorating these heroes' legacies while affirming the enduring role of the arts in shaping America's future.”

Opera Memphis was selected from a national pool of applicants, with only fifty grants awarded nationwide. The company is the only recipient in Tennessee and one of only two opera companies across the country to receive funding through this initiative.

Supported Performances

The first project supported by the grant, I Hear America Singing, was presented in October in collaboration with Crosstown Arts. The Handorf Company Artists of Opera Memphis performed alongside the Memphis Symphony Orchestra in a program highlighting American heroes. The concert included two new short operas featuring text by Memphis playwright Jerre Dye and music by composers Kamala Sankaram and Rene Orth, a Rhodes College alum.

The second grant-supported performance, I Hear Memphis Singing, will be presented in the spring. The program will feature music connected to artists who were born in Memphis, created music in the city, or contributed to its reputation as a center of American music. Figures represented include Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin, Johnny Cash, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Bessie Smith.

“The law establishing the NEA puts it perfectly,” said Opera Memphis General Director Ned Canty. “It says, ‘The arts and the humanities belong to all the people of the United States.' We couldn't be more excited to do our part to remind every Memphian that saying the arts belong to everyone isn't just idealistic talk—it's written into the laws of our nation.”

Additional information about projects included in the NEA’s America250 grant initiative is available through the National Endowment for the Arts.

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