Libretto by Deborah Brevoort; music by Errollyn Wallen

The year is 1780. The place, London, England.  The British have lost the War of Independence in the American colonies.  Juba Freeman, who fled a Carolina plantation where he was enslaved in order to fight for the British against his American oppressors, arrives in London and tries to build a new life for himself.  He meets Amelia Alumond, an idealistic, young, upper-class Black woman, who is involved in a charity set up to help the ex-slaves who have arrived on England’s shores. Based on historical events, the opera takes us into the worlds of these two little-known Black communities in England during the late 18^th century. Quamino’s Map is an opera about the enduring pull of freedom and the ends to which people will go to achieve it.

Commissioned by the Chicago Opera Theater.