Over the past three years, Operanauts has staged productions in New York and Kinshasa as a lead-up to its premiere project, Carmen in Congo. This production will form the foundation of an ongoing global music exchange project across Africa. Operanauts intends to partner with Congolese agency to produce the first annual Classical and Opera Music Festival to be staged in Kinshasa at the Amphitheatre de Verdure, on the estate of late President Mobutu, in summer 2017.

The inaugural festival performance will consist of three acts, opening with the world-famous Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste. Carmen in Congo will make its debut followed by a third yet-to-be-created act, which will combine both Opera and Classical music as interpreted and informed by Congolese culture and music. Operanauts with its performers, technicians and designers will partner with local Congolese and Africa-based performers, theatre technicians and producers to create a memorable and intoxicating foundation on which to build an internationally recognized music festival.

For more information about Operanauts’ artistic partners, Maestro Armand Diangienda and the OSK, writer Alexis Okeowo published her perspective in an article for The New Yorker Magazine, titled, Handel in Kinshasa.

“An unlikely orchestra wins the worlds attention.”

Here is a link to the article: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/09/handel-in-kinshasa