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Anna Deeny Morales
ANNA DEENY MORALES grew up between Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico. She works in poetry and music as a librettist, translator, and literary critic.
Her work in opera has been supported by the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Georgetown Americas Institute, and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Recent operas include Las Místicas, a collaboration with vocalist and director, Maribeth Diggle; composer and musician, Tina Chancey; and visual artist, Marta Pérez García. Produced by the IN Series, Las Místicas will debut at the Mexican Cultural Institute and the Dupont Circle Underground in 2024. In 2022, ZAVALA-ZAVALA: an opera in v cuts, commissioned by the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and composer Brian Arreola, made its world debut at the Kennedy Center with the IN Series and the Georgetown University Orchestra. ZAVALA-ZAVALA was selected by the Latiné Musical Theater Lab for the 4XLatiné Showcase at the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, NYC, in 2023, and will be performed at Gala Hispanic Theater, Washington, DC, in June, 2024. Recent adaptations of zarzuelas include Gonzalo Roig’s Cecilia Valdés (2018), and La Paloma at the Wall (2019), a new rendition of Tomás Bretón's La verbena de la Paloma. La Paloma's score was adapted by Mexican composer Ulises Eliseo. Both were commissioned by the In Series and performed at Gala Hispanic Theater. Original works for contemporary dance and theater include La straniera (1997), an adaptation of Medea by Euripides, and Tela di Ragno (1999–2002), inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses. Both were commissioned by Il Balletto di Spoleto and performed in Italy and Spain.
A National Endowment for the Arts Fellow for her translation of Tala by Nobel Laureate, Gabriela Mistral, Deeny Morales's translations of Raúl Zurita’s poetry include Sky Below, Selected Works (Northwestern University Press, 2016), of which she is also the editor; Dreams for Kurosawa (arrow as aarow press, 2011); and Purgatory (University of California Press, 2009). Shearsman Press published her translation of Alejandra Pizarnik’s Diana’s Tree in 2020, and Mercedes Roffé’s Floating Lanterns in 2015. Composer Theresa Wong set selections of Floating Lanterns to music during her residency at The Stone, The New School, New York City, in 2018, and for a Long Beach Opera commission in 2020. Deeny Morales has guest edited literary journals such as Almost Island, based in Mumbai, India. Her essays and translations of poetry by Rosabetty Muñoz, Malú Urriola, Diana Bellessi, Idea Vilariño, Marosa di Giorgio, Mirta Rosenberg, Isabel de los Ángeles Ruano, and Idea Vilariño, among others, have appeared in anthologies and journals such as the Paris Review, Mandorla, BOMB, and the Harvard Review. Forthcoming works in translation include Ecopoems, Storm, & Some Fringe Benefits, a volume of selected works by Nicanor Parra, which she has edited and translated for New Directions; and Amanda Berenguer's Identity of Certain Fruits, published by Point Zero Press.
Deeny Morales is the Academy of American Poets judge for the 2023 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award. She has also served as a judge for the National Translation Award in Poetry and an expert reader for the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship competition. She is currently the Vice Present of the board of directors of the In Series and has chaired the Gabriela Mistral Youth Poetry Competition.
She received a BA in English Literature with a minor in Piano Performance from Shepherd University; an MA in Comparative Literature, with an emphasis on Puerto Rican theater, from Dartmouth College; and a PhD in Hispanic Languages and Literatures from the University of California, Berkeley. In Rome, Italy, she studied theater and directing at the Accademia Nazionale d'Arte Drammatica, Silvio d'Amico. A Fellow in the Humanities at the Center for Latin American Studies at Georgetown University, Deeny Morales has lectured in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Dartmouth College as well as the History and Literature Program at Harvard University. At Harvard she was named an "Inspiring Latina" by Latinas Unidas and awarded two Derek Bok Excellence in Teaching Certificates. Her book, Other Solitudes: Essays on Consciousness and Poetry, is forthcoming.
Photo by Tamzin Smith.
Her work in opera has been supported by the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Georgetown Americas Institute, and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Recent operas include Las Místicas, a collaboration with vocalist and director, Maribeth Diggle; composer and musician, Tina Chancey; and visual artist, Marta Pérez García. Produced by the IN Series, Las Místicas will debut at the Mexican Cultural Institute and the Dupont Circle Underground in 2024. In 2022, ZAVALA-ZAVALA: an opera in v cuts, commissioned by the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and composer Brian Arreola, made its world debut at the Kennedy Center with the IN Series and the Georgetown University Orchestra. ZAVALA-ZAVALA was selected by the Latiné Musical Theater Lab for the 4XLatiné Showcase at the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, NYC, in 2023, and will be performed at Gala Hispanic Theater, Washington, DC, in June, 2024. Recent adaptations of zarzuelas include Gonzalo Roig’s Cecilia Valdés (2018), and La Paloma at the Wall (2019), a new rendition of Tomás Bretón's La verbena de la Paloma. La Paloma's score was adapted by Mexican composer Ulises Eliseo. Both were commissioned by the In Series and performed at Gala Hispanic Theater. Original works for contemporary dance and theater include La straniera (1997), an adaptation of Medea by Euripides, and Tela di Ragno (1999–2002), inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses. Both were commissioned by Il Balletto di Spoleto and performed in Italy and Spain.
A National Endowment for the Arts Fellow for her translation of Tala by Nobel Laureate, Gabriela Mistral, Deeny Morales's translations of Raúl Zurita’s poetry include Sky Below, Selected Works (Northwestern University Press, 2016), of which she is also the editor; Dreams for Kurosawa (arrow as aarow press, 2011); and Purgatory (University of California Press, 2009). Shearsman Press published her translation of Alejandra Pizarnik’s Diana’s Tree in 2020, and Mercedes Roffé’s Floating Lanterns in 2015. Composer Theresa Wong set selections of Floating Lanterns to music during her residency at The Stone, The New School, New York City, in 2018, and for a Long Beach Opera commission in 2020. Deeny Morales has guest edited literary journals such as Almost Island, based in Mumbai, India. Her essays and translations of poetry by Rosabetty Muñoz, Malú Urriola, Diana Bellessi, Idea Vilariño, Marosa di Giorgio, Mirta Rosenberg, Isabel de los Ángeles Ruano, and Idea Vilariño, among others, have appeared in anthologies and journals such as the Paris Review, Mandorla, BOMB, and the Harvard Review. Forthcoming works in translation include Ecopoems, Storm, & Some Fringe Benefits, a volume of selected works by Nicanor Parra, which she has edited and translated for New Directions; and Amanda Berenguer's Identity of Certain Fruits, published by Point Zero Press.
Deeny Morales is the Academy of American Poets judge for the 2023 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award. She has also served as a judge for the National Translation Award in Poetry and an expert reader for the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship competition. She is currently the Vice Present of the board of directors of the In Series and has chaired the Gabriela Mistral Youth Poetry Competition.
She received a BA in English Literature with a minor in Piano Performance from Shepherd University; an MA in Comparative Literature, with an emphasis on Puerto Rican theater, from Dartmouth College; and a PhD in Hispanic Languages and Literatures from the University of California, Berkeley. In Rome, Italy, she studied theater and directing at the Accademia Nazionale d'Arte Drammatica, Silvio d'Amico. A Fellow in the Humanities at the Center for Latin American Studies at Georgetown University, Deeny Morales has lectured in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Dartmouth College as well as the History and Literature Program at Harvard University. At Harvard she was named an "Inspiring Latina" by Latinas Unidas and awarded two Derek Bok Excellence in Teaching Certificates. Her book, Other Solitudes: Essays on Consciousness and Poetry, is forthcoming.
Photo by Tamzin Smith.
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The Post-Classical Ensemble, under the direction of conductor Ángel Gil-Ordóñez, in collaboration with the IN Series, under the artistic direction of Timothy Nelson, will debut ¡ZAVALA-ZAVALA! during the 2021-2022 season.
The Post-Classical Ensemble, under the direction of conductor Ángel Gil-Ordóñez, in collaboration with the IN Series, under the artistic direction of Timothy Nelson, will debut ¡ZAVALA-ZAVALA! during the 2021-2022 season.