New Wave Opera (NWO) presents Currents of Change, an examination of our warming world through opera, in collaboration with Portland State University’s Music @ Midday concert series. This free lunchtime concert features exclusive previews of Portland composer Caroline Louise Miller’s opera Deep Water, which NWO will premiere in June 2026. Deep Water is a post-apocalyptic fantasy opera that investigates rage, grief, play, & persistence in the face of gargantuan, destructive forces. Queer teenage companions Val & Bluejay chronicle the fall of humanity during the Anthropocene, acting as witnesses and documentarians and finding resilience through love and play. Deep Water positions 2 queer teenagers in the role of history-creation, defining what is worth preserving.
Miller says about the upcoming performance: “In writing Deep Water, I am continually inspired by the vast complexities of human experience, exploring entanglements of climate grief with the need for love, levity and play. In this upcoming performance, I am especially excited to share the excerpt Immortality Becomes Tedious, in which Val and Bluejay reminisce and lament on the difficulty of remaining the same over centuries while the earth experiences devastating changes. ”
Complimenting selections from Deep Water are excerpts of modern operas and art songs by living composers about the climate crisis, including songs from Portland composer Drew Swatosh’s Dead Fires Anthology and NWO President Lisa Neher’s major song cycles about climate change No One Saves the Earth from Us But Us and Love in a Time of Climate Change (commissioned by Oregon Music Teachers Association for their 2025 Composer of the Year Award). “The performing arts play a crucial role in confronting the climate crisis,” says NWO President Lisa Neher. “Statistics and daily obligations can overwhelm and distract us, but the arts bring people together to pause and feel, and that shared experience drives sustained collective action.”
Audiences will hear arias from Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek’s Proving Up, a sharp critique of the American Dream, and from Gregory Spears and Greg Pierce’s Fellow Travelers, which dramatizes the 1950s persecution and mass dismissal of gay U.S. government employees.
Currents of Change features a team of Portland’s leading performers of contemporary music:
soprano Lindsey Rae Johnson, mezzo-soprano Lisa Neher, tenor Brandon Michael, and pianist Stephen Lewis, with composer Caroline Louise Miller running electronics for Deep Water.
Currents of Change will be performed in English, with a runtime of 60 minutes. Admission is free and open to the public. This performance is made possible by Portland State University.
To learn more about this show and more from the upcoming season, visit NEWWAVEOPERA.ORG.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Lincoln Hall, Lincoln Hall, 1620 SW Park Ave, Portland, OR 97201, United States
