Sweet Land Is Awarded Best New Opera By The Music Critics Association Of North America

The Acclaimed Project That Exemplifies “Opera As Astonishment” (LA Times) Out On Streaming Platforms September 24

Award Bestowed To Composers Du Yun & Raven Chacon, Librettists Aja Couchois Duncan & Douglas Kearney

Listen To "Makwa's Aria" Here

Today, the Music Critics Association Of North America (MCANA) announces that its 2021 Award for Best New Opera will be awarded to composers Du Yun and Raven Chacon and librettists Aja Couchois Duncan and Douglas Kearney for Sweet Land, the wildly acclaimed and history-reckoning opera that unveils the uncomfortable truth behind our “Sweet Land of Liberty.” This highly collaborative work produced by Los Angeles-based opera company The Industry sheds the reliable tropes and gives a voice to the despoiled and disposed victims of the American empire. 

The initial run of Sweet Land, which took place from February 29 to March 8 in 2020 at Los Angeles State Historic Park, was the subject of praise from The LA Times, The New York Times, and The New Yorker upon its debut. Joshua Barone of the New York Times says it’s “A head-spinning abstraction of colonialism and whitewashed mythology.” Alex Ross of The New Yorker deemed it “a gut punch,” while Mark Swed at the LA Times called it “opera as astonishment.” See more praise below. 

On September 24, Sweet Land will be released in album form on all streaming platforms. Even in its recorded form, Sweet Land retains its potency, placing emphasis on the striking compositions and cutting libretto that liberates opera from its rigid conventions. Listen to “Makwa’s Aria,” a movement from Sweet Land here.

Sweet Land will be available as both standard and an extended deluxe version. Pre-order Sweet Land on Bandcamp here.

The diverse array of collaborators behind Sweet Land include composer Du Yun, a Chinese immigrant whose opera Angel’s Bone, which explores human trafficking, won a Pulitzer Prize for music; Raven Chacon, a composer and artist from the Navajo Nation who advocates for indigenous composers and musicians; librettist Douglas Kearney, a poet whose writing “pulls history apart, recombining it to reveal an alternative less whitewashed by enfranchised power” (BOMB); Aja Couchois Duncan, a mixed-race Ojibwe writer with a focus on social justice; Cannupa Hanksa Luger, a multidisciplinary installation artist of Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Lakota, Austrian, and Norwegian descent who was raised on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota; and Yuval Sharon, a 2017 MacArthur Fellow whose recent works include Hopscotch, Invisible Cities, War of the Worlds, and Meredith Monk’s ATLAS.

The Best New Opera award plaques will be presented during the MCANA Annual Meeting, a hybrid virtual and in-person event September 10-12 in Detroit in collaboration with Michigan Opera Theatre.

About The Award

2021 marks Year Five of MCANA's Annual Award for Best New Opera. It honors musical and theatrical excellence in a fully staged opera that received its world premiere in North America during the preceding calendar year. The only such award in the U.S., it is also one of the few in the world that simultaneously recognizes both composer and librettist. 

After soliciting nominations from MCANA members, the finalists are chosen by an Awards Committee co-chaired by Heidi Waleson, opera critic of The Wall Street Journal, and George Loomis, longtime contributor to the Financial Times and Musical America—alongside committee members Arthur Kaptainis, who writes for the Montreal Gazette and La Scena Musicale; John Rockwell, former critic and arts editor of The New York Times and co-New York correspondent of Opera (UK); and Alex Ross, music critic of The New Yorker. 

MCANA's Best New Opera Award has an illustrious track record. The inaugural Award went to Missy Mazzoli (composer) and Royce Vavrek (librettist) for Breaking the Waves in 2017; the 2nd Award went to composer-librettist David Hertzberg for The Wake World in 2018; the 3rd Award went to Ellen Reid (composer) and Roxy Perkins (libretto) for p r i s m in 2019; and the 4th Award went to Jeanine Tesori (composer) and Tazewell Thompson (librettist) for Blue in 2020.

About The Industry

The Industry is an artist-driven company creating experimental productions that expand the traditional definition of opera. Through ambitious interdisciplinary collaborations in new contexts, The Industry produces works that defy boundaries and inspire new audiences for the art form. The Industry believes that opera can be emergent and responsive to new perspectives and voices, and that opera plays an essential role in shaping civic identity.  The Industry serves as an incubator for new talent and for artists predominantly based in Los Angeles.

Founded by Artistic Director Yuval Sharon in 2010, The Industry has premiered critically acclaimed large-scale and site-responsive productions Invisible Cities, 2013, Hopscotch, 2015, War of the Worlds, 2017, and Sweet Land, 2020. The company also presents smaller scale yet artistically ambitious programs featuring American composers, instrumentalists, and singers.

The Industry’s independent recording label, The Industry Records, expands the reach of the company’s projects and other new, experimental American operas through high-quality recordings and films. They are committed to supporting artists through initiatives like The Industry Company, which cultivates opportunities for talent on every level of opera’s creation and shines a spotlight on the artists who create their ambitious productions.

About MCANA

MCANA is the only North American organization for professional classical music critics. The association was incorporated in 1957, and early members included leading critics such as Miles Kastendieck of the New York Herald Tribune, Harold C. Schonberg of the New York Times, Paul Hume of the Washington Post, and Irving Lowens of the Washington Star. Current members include critics at the New Yorker, New York Times, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, San Francisco Chronicle, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and Toronto Star; regular contributors to the Financial Times, Gramophone, Los Angeles Times, Ludwig van Toronto, Montreal Gazette, Musicalamerica.com, Opera, Opera News, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Wall Street Journal; and program annotators and broadcast journalists. The organization is a member of the National Music Council. In 2013, MCANA launched Classical Voice North America, a web publication for reviews, features, and commentary with readers in 120 countries.

Praise For Sweet Land and The Industry

for it to lose a significant amount of its sugar content. If you love Thanksgiving, prepare to no longer know what that even means.” — Mark Swed, LA Times 

“A gut punch...Chaotic, conflicted, implacably honest, it unfurled a narrative that dismantled its own ideological underpinnings and exposed its own lies.” — Alex Ross, The New Yorker

“A head-spinning abstraction of colonialism and whitewashed mythology.” — Joshua Barone, The New York Times

“Mesmerizing.” — Heidi Waleson, Wall Street Journal 

"Once again Yuval Sharon and The Industry have expanded the borders of what an opera can be and told a story that is in desperate need of telling." — Jim Farber, San Francisco Classical Voice

"A bewildering and ghostly new opera. Sweet Land is a parable of, and fantasia on, Manifest Destiny, performed outdoors at a richly suggestive site. The ending is a miniature masterpiece." — Zachary Woolfe, New York Times

"An astonishing presentation that unfolds like a chillingly beautiful fever dream across several unusual settings spread out in Chinatown’s L.A. State Historic Park.Sweet Land lingers in the memory with its utterly entrancing music." — Falling James, LA Weekly

“The leading edge of operatic innovation.” — Jeffrey Marlow, Wired Magazine

“The coolest opera company in the world.” — Brian Lauritzen, KUSC